A DRIVER has told how he miraculously escaped death after a 50ft tree crushed his car and sent it swerving into a head-on crash.

Paul Henderson regained consciousness as he sat in the car in the middle of the road moments after the collision.

He cannot remember a thing about the crash, which happened when he was driving his wife’s Land Rover during gale force winds near Poole.

The 57-year-old said: “I would most definitely have another Land Rover – in my mind, that car saved my life.”

The tree fell and hit the former banker’s car on the A31 between Corfe Mullen and Sturminster Marshall.

He was driving home after dropping his wife Alison off at Barclays in Ferndown.

The impact forced the car’s roof down level with the steering wheel and sent his car careering into an oncoming Fiat Punto.

Mr Henderson said: “It was very windy and I was driving around 40 to 50 mph.

“I can’t remember a thing after that. All I remember is being sat in the middle of the road, with the windscreen smashed, and I had to force the door open.”

He went to comfort the Punto driver, a 32-year-old from Leicester, who was soon airlifted to Poole Hospital with a broken leg from a crushed footwell.

“He was moaning and groaning. His knees, instead of facing the front of the car, were pointed towards the door.”

The Punto driver’s wife and two children aged under four escaped serious injury despite the car being wrecked in the crash, which happened last Tuesday.

Mr Henderson started to shake with shock and sat down in the boot of his car. He said: “A driver asked me to back up so that the traffic could get through!”

Mr Henderson, from Winterborne Whitechurch, spent just one night in Poole Hospital with concussion and believes he was hit by the rear view mirror.

He had no worse injuries than a sore temple, bruising to his arm, and chest injuries from the seatbelt.

He said the eight-year-old Land Rover Freelander looks to be a write-off.

“I find it frustrating I can’t remember what happened,” he said.

“If it had been more serious or fatal for somebody, I would say yes, I wouldn’t want to remember.

“I can’t believe it happened though, really.

“When I went to see the car, and I thought what would have happened if the roof had come down a few inches more, I thought ‘There but for the grace of God’.

“It was my wife’s car. I have an Audi and I think it would have been the same result in that.”