A powerful sports coupe careered off the north-east’s busiest road before ploughing through three gardens and smashing into a house.

One resident in the village of Newtonhill said it was “like a scene from the movies” when the grey Audi S5 came flying over a fence as she put her rubbish out.

Another said her blood ran cold when she realised her young son could have been playing outside when they accident.

The two people in the car – believed to be a man and a woman – were able to clamber out of the wreckage after it landed on its roof.

It had mounted a pavement beside the A90 Aberdeen-Dundee road before hurtling down an embankment and demolishing a fence.

It was raining at the time and it is understood two other vehicles left the A90 in the same area.

Last night, Clare Leiper said she was still in shock after the car crashed into her home in Newtonhill’s St Ternans Road.

She was in Ayrshire visiting relatives when her boyfriend Jon Bradley contacted her to tell her what had happened.

And she immediately realised that her two-year-old son Caleb Webster-Leiper could have been in the garden at the time.

She said: “I didn’t see it but my boyfriend Jon told me about it and took some pictures.

“When he told me it did go through my head ‘what if Caleb had been there?’.

“It could have been a lot worse so I think we’ve been pretty lucky. There are still bits of Audi in the garden.

“I’m just glad there aren’t any serious injuries.”

One St Ternans Road resident went into her garden neighbouring the trunk road to put out a bin bag and saw the dramatic crash unfold.

She said: “I was out putting out the rubbish and this car came flying up. I just saw this car coming over the fence.

“It was like something out of the movies. I thought ‘am I seeing things?’.

“That is twice that’s happened in the past couple of years at this bit.

“It came off the dual carriageway and hit the house. My husband and daughter were up the back of our garden shearing trees at the time.

“When I saw it I thought ‘there is going to be someone seriously hurt’.

“That’s when I said to my husband you better go and see if they are ok.

“We were just saying maybe if there were metal barriers along the road we wouldn’t get hit like this. It was wet at the time as well.”

Police, fire and rescue and ambulance services all went to the scene but the two people in the Audi managed to get out of the car by themselves.

A police spokeswoman said officers had carried out inquiries into the cause of the incident.

No one has been charged and it is understood another two vehicles left the A90 around the same time on Saturday.

A police spokeswoman said: “I think it was just the one car that was involved. I think there might have been other cars that went off the road but not in the same way. I don’t believe there were any injuries.”

A fire and rescue spokesman said: “We got the call at 11.40am. We had two appliances both from Stonehaven and a total of eight firefighters.

“We just made the vehicle safe and washed away a fuel spillage. Everyone was self-rescued. There was two people involved.

“We used small gear and a spill kit and that was it really.”

An ambulance spokeswoman said: “We did attend and it was three vehicles involved. We didn’t take anyone to hospital. We had one ambulance there.”

Calls for crash barriers at Newtonhill

Councillors and residents have called for crash barriers to be installed alongside the A90 through Newtonhill.

Robin Donald, 52, has lived in St Ternan Road for eight years, and said people had become used to the risk of vehicles leaving the carriageway.

He said: “We are going to be contacting our councillors on Monday to see if we can get some crash barriers – which would protect the drivers as well.

“It is concerning. It is not something I am really scared of but when it happens I worry about it for a while. It is a very busy road out there.

“We have got a fair embankment behind us, sometimes we think it protects us here but as you go further up the hill it is worse there.”

Newtonhill councillor Ian Mollison said he would be writing to Transport Scotland to ask about the possibility of having crash barriers installed.

He added: “Something has to be done to protect the people who live in these houses.

“This is not the first time this has happened. I am told by one resident it is the third time in four years.

“It is not a tight bend, there is no problem with the camber, and there are no hazards. And yet this happens.

“We have been lucky on this occasion but at another time in summer people are out in their gardens, you have to think what the consequences might have been.”

He added: “There could have been folk having a barbecue, someone out gardening, children playing – you don’t want to think about these things. I’d like to see crash barriers there.”