Sister of motorist who survived tree collapsing on her car tells of 'very lucky escape'
A woman has narrowly avoided being crushed by a falling tree in east Belfast.
Her sister told the News Letter her sibling had been driving to pick her up and pay an urgent visit to their mother, when the incident happened at the junction of Circular Road and Cairnburn Road.
"There was a tree down,” said the sister, who didn’t want her sibling who was driving to be identified.
“As she was turning to go the other way to avoid the tree that’d already fallen, another one came crashing down – onto her car.
"It was a very lucky escape. She was obviously very shaken up about it. And the car is a write-off.”
She was “in hysterics” the sister said.
"The wood had gone right through the windscreen,” she said.
"But it was on the passenger side, luckily enough. Not her side.”
It was an escape that could be measured in inches, her sister said adding she “dreads to think” what the outcome would have been if things had been just slightly different.
A witness to the incident said that the tree “didn’t go like in the movies, a slow motion fall – it crashed very quickly”.
The sister concuded: “We’re very thankful she’s safe and sound.”