A beloved high school sports coach and his wife were killed in a fiery car crash after he lost control of their SUV and smashed into their neighbor’s house, according to police.
Thomas Hengel, 72, and Lisa Hengel, 61, died after their Hyundai Palisade suddenly accelerated for an unknown reason, hit a curb, drove across two front yards and hit the side of home in Harrison Township in Gloucester County Saturday evening, NJ Advanced Media reported.
The crash sparked a fire that engulfed the car and spread rapidly throughout the home before firefighters were able to put out the blaze.
Miraculously, nobody was hurt inside of the home, according to Harrison Township Police Chief Ronald Cundey.
“The family whose home it was, by the grace of God, was not in that front living room at the time where the vehicle crashed into,” Cundey told the outlet. “They were in their kitchen eating dinner.”
The house sustained significant structural damage and is currently uninhabitable, officials said.
Hengel, a retired teacher, coached cross country, track, basketball and baseball over his storied coaching career, which began at Clearwater Regional High School in 1981 and earned himself a spot in the Gloucester County Sport Hall of fame in 2018.
He was named Girls Cross Country Coach of the Year by NJ.com in 2022.
Investigators are working to determine what caused Hengel to lose control of his car but it’s believed to be an accident and no criminality is suspected at this time, Cundey said.
