Witnesses have described the moment a group of men attempted to smash their way through the front and back door of a Norwich home.
The men were heard to shout 'open up' before trying to break into the terraced property on Cavell Road on Wednesday night.
It sparked a high-speed police chase through Norfolk and into Cambridgeshire as the suspects tried to escape.
They fled from the Lakenham address in a black Mercedes C200, but later crashed at Six Mile Bottom.
On Thursday morning the property's front door had been partly boarded up, and a rear door was smashed.
A 42-year-old woman who lives nearby described seeing a group of men run into the rear of the house.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, she said: 'It sounded so horrible the way they were banging on the door, and there were so many of them.
'I heard a lot of screaming and one said 'open up now'. I then saw a lot of people run into the back of his house.'
She said when police arrived the men jumped through people's gardens and down an alleyway to escape.
Another witness who saw the drama unfold at the front of the property said she saw three men 'trying to smash the door in'.
The 82-year-old, who did not wish to be named, said: 'It was all the smashing and crashing noise that made us look.
'They [the men] had something in their hand were trying to force the door open.
'I didn't want to go outside because I was scared stiff. '
The woman said she was about to call police when 'all of a sudden' officers arrived on scene.
Police said they were called to an address at Cavell Road at about 9.25pm to reports of a burglary.
Officers spotted the suspected getaway vehicle on the A11 near Wymondham, heading southbound towards Suffolk.
Norfolk police started to chase the car, with a police helicopter from Chelmsford also involved in the pursuit.
The vehicle crashed on the junction of the A1304 and A11 at Six Mile Bottom in Cambridgeshire at about 10.35pm.
No other vehicle was involved in the crash, which left the slip road shut until this morning and happened 60 miles away from the original burglary which sparked the chase.
Six men were taken to hospital with five of those arrested at the scene.
Two of the men are currently in Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge with serious injuries, two men were taken to West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds with serious injuries, while two other men have since been released from hospital and have now been taken into custody.
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