A dramatic early morning accident has resulted in Wānaka man Clayton Hope being airlifted to Dunedin Hospital with crush injuries.

NZ Police said emergency services were called to a home on Weatherall Crescent in Wānaka early this morning (Wednesday May 24).

Fire and Emergency New Zealand spent about two hours freeing Clayton.

Wānaka lawyer Janice Hughes told the Wānaka App that Clayton, who is her husband, had left the house early this morning for his usual 5am start at Wānaka New World. 

After driving his truck through the gate at the top of their steep driveway, he stopped the ute and exited it to close the gate behind him.

Unfortunately the handbrake appeared not to have engaged properly and the truck began to slide backwards towards the gate.

Janice and Clayton have learned their ute is the same width as the entrance to their home. PHOTO: Supplied

He ran to the truck and tried to get into it, but as he was halfway into the truck it dragged him towards the entryway of their home and crashed through.

Clayton was left trapped between the truck and a brick garage fire-wall.

Janice awoke to a crash and thought it was an earthquake until she heard the truck horn, which Clayton had managed to access.

She entered the living room to find water rushing through the room, a strong smell of gas, and debris everywhere.

Clayton was trapped and calling for her to get him out but she couldn’t help him. While on the phone to emergency services she started to panic about the smell of gas, concerned the underfloor gas heating could ignite.

“I managed to find out where to turn off the gas and turned it off, and turned off the water,” she said.

“By the time I’d done that the St John people had turned up. They were amazing.”

The wait felt like aeons, she said.

“I was quite stressed out as you could imagine.”

To free Clayton, emergency services eventually had to get a generator to power a tool to cut through the firewall.

Clayton stayed conscious the whole time. 

“He’s actually really fortunate. Yes, he’s got crush injuries, but he’s not dead,” Janice said.

“The house is damaged, the truck is munted. But we’ve got a great community".

Emergency workers trying to free Clayton Hope this morning. PHOTO: Supplied

Janice flew to Dunedin Hospital in the rescue helicopter with Clayton, and meanwhile Phil Smith (who built their house) arrived at their address, secured gas lines and began to organise insurance and so on. 

Another friend arrived to organise the couple’s pets.

“We are super grateful for all of the community people who literally turned up and helped do all sorts of things,” Janice said.

“Also super apologetic to the neighbours who we woke up with the rescue helicopter.”

Janice said Clayton is in good hands and getting checked out at ICU.

“For all the negativity we hear about the health system we couldn’t fault anyone. They were there in a heartbeat, they were all amazing and caring.

“We live in a quite rural and remote community and without those services we would really struggle.

“I take my hat off to them.”

Janice said she has learned their entrance way is exactly as wide as their ute. She also had advice for anyone whose vehicle rolls away on them.

“If a car starts to slide, just let it go,” she said.

PHOTO: Supplied