The RCMP say 17 headstones were damaged after a car left Nova Scotia’s Highway 10 and crashed into a cemetery in New Germany.

Police responded to St. John's Anglican Church cemetery around 6 p.m. Monday.

Police say the vehicle was travelling southbound on Highway 10 when it left the road and entered the cemetery, causing substantial damage to the grounds and 17 headstones.

“I saw him coming across there. I mean, he was really moving. The stones were flying,” says resident Shirley Demone, who saw the crash from her living room window.

“There was nothing left of the front end at all. The one wheel was out on its side and it was demolished – the back, the doors, everything. The whole side of the car was dented in.”

Four people were inside the vehicle at the time of the crash, but no one was injured.

“I couldn’t believe that a vehicle could go through this many tombstones and people not be hurt,” says Foard Robar, who has three family members whose tombstones were smashed.

Janet Tipert’s father and father-in-law are buried in the cemetery. She says their tombstones were dragged across the grounds.

“When I first pulled up and took a look, I really got sick to my stomach,” says Tipert, who is also the church’s warden.

RCMP are investigating the incident, but don’t believe drugs or alcohol were a factor. They say the driver fell asleep at the wheel.

“It was nothing intentional. It was pure accident,” says Tipert. “The poor chap I understand just fell asleep.”

Robar says he does not feel any anger towards the driver.

“As long as it gets put back to the way it was before, we took great pride in that cemetery here, looking after it,” he says. “Hopefully the insurance company will look after it.”

The church estimates the damage to be around $100,000. The church is hoping to have the cemetery fixed before the winter snow falls.

“At least we’re not in the old part of the cemetery where you’re dealing with marble or the soft stone monuments and so on,” says the cemetery’s record keeper, Adam Tipert. “We have full records for this section so we have no doubt we’ll be able to get things back to the way they should be.”

With files from CTV Atlantic's Matt Woodman