A married couple was hospitalized Friday after their plane crashed into the detached garage of a Polk County home.
The pilot, John Murphy, 84, and his wife, Doris Murphy, 75, received non-life-threatening injuries, according to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.
The crash was reported just before 10 a.m. in the area Buena Vista Drive and Terrace Avenue West in Lake Alfred.
"It sounded like somebody turned on a gigantic wood chipper," said Mark Henke, who lives next-door.
Henke figured the ruckus belonged to workers clearing out the canal, but he was way off.
"I looked and said, oh there's a plane over there," he said.
Henke joined two other men and ran to help get the pilot and passenger out of the mangled wreckage.
"The woman didn't look too bad. She was kind of trapped in there and we wiggled her out," he said. "And the guy, he was laying on the ground and he had a big gash in his head."
Investigators believe the pilot lost power right after takeoff from the Winter Haven airport, just around the corner.
The pilot narrowly missed a playground, high voltage power lines, and the home -- which is detached from the garage.
Nobody was in the home on the property where the plane crashed, deputies said.
The Federal Aviation Administration identified the plane as a Republic RC3 Seabee amphibious sports aircraft.
