Driver reveals his miracle escape
Published: October 26, 2006
A MOTORIST today told of his miracle escape from his blazing car after it was flattened by a falling tree.
Tim Gardner was left trapped by his legs after the tree crashed onto his vehicle.
But he managed to squeeze out of the wreckage with seconds to spare before it became a fireball.
Today Mr Gardner said: “I know I am a very lucky man.”
The father-of-two was driving along Hewell Lane, between Redditch and Bromsgrove, on Saturday afternoon when the freak accident happened.
Mr Gardner, a chemical process operator who works for Rhodia in Oldbury, said the weather was clear and everything was going well until something strange caught his eye.
“I saw this tree sliding down the steep bank in the corner of my eye,” he said. “At first thought it was a branch and I braked to avoid it.”
What followed was complete mayhem.
“The next thing I knew, the car was at a standstill, the airbags had gone off, the windscreen shattered, and smoke was coming out from the bonnet,” he said.
Mr Gardner distinctly remembers being struck by how eerily quiet it was before pain crept up through his leg.
“I thought, ‘Blimey, I’m alive - I’ve got to get out of the car’.
“My leg was trapped on the pedals and I put my weight on the door to open it and hobbled out onto the road.
“I called 999 but by then the car was ablaze. I was so relieved I wasn’t in it.”
He had been returning home to The Pines, at Rubery, after helping a friend with some DIY work when the accident happened.
Mr Gardner, who is married to Lorraine, and has two daughters, Bethany, aged seven, and Megan, 11, is grateful no-one else was in the vehicle.
“If my daughters had been inside the car they wouldn’t have got out alive,” he said.
Mr Gardner was taken to the Alexandra Hospital, Redditch, where he was treated for a sprained ankle, whiplash and facial lacerations.
His insurance company E-Sure have said the accident was an act of God and have written off the car.
He will receive the market value of the vehicle but there is more bad news.
Mr Gardner said: “I’m going to lose my no-claims bonus because no one is to blame as such.
“Worcestershire County Council are investigating the incident. Hopefully this will stop it happening to anyone else.”
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