A BOURNEMOUTH man had a lucky escape as his car was nearly crushed by a falling tree in Poole on Sunday evening.

Melvin Millin was on his way back home from Poole Hospital just before 7pm, having completed his shift driving for the out of hours mobile doctors’ unit.

Halfway along his journey, he was alerted by a sudden sound and forced to take evasive action.

The 69-year-old said: “I was just driving up Bournemouth Road have just finished my shift at the hospital, and I heard this incredible cracking noise from above.

“I looked up and saw this tree coming down. There was no one in the oncoming lane so I swerved into it. Thank goodness no one else was on the road.

“It just caught my car and cracked my windscreen.”

Bournemouth Echo: Melvin Millin, 69 from Bournemouth, had a lucky escape as his car was almost crushed by a falling tree as he was driving along Bournemouth Road on Sunday May 27. Picture by Melvin Millin

Residents in the nearby block of flats rushed over to come to Melvin’s assistance, but he came out of the incident unscathed.

The tree came down to obstruct the road in both directions, and police arrived to close the road to the junction with Mansfield Road.

Melvin remained on the scene for an hour and a half to give statements to the police and wait for his vehicle, a red Toyota, to be recovered.

“Luckily, I looked up just before it came down and managed to get out of the way” added Melvin.

“Thank goodness the road was pretty quiet; it could have been a double decker bus going up the hill or there could have been pedestrians on the pavement.

“I guess the weather wasn’t that good yesterday otherwise the road would still have been busy if it was a sunny day.”

The A35 Bournemouth Road was shut again yesterday from 11.40am as tree surgeons took down another tree which had been damaged by tree which came down on Sunday.

After assessing the remainder of the tree on Monday morning, representatives from BCP Council’s Arboricultural team established that it “required immediate removal on safety grounds”.

However, having told many of friends and family about his near miss, Melvin thanks his lucky star that came out of the incident unharmed.

“You go over what happened over and over again, even though it was just a split second, and think about ‘what ifs’, he said.

“At that point in the evening it wasn’t that windy or rainy so you wouldn’t have expected it to come down then. It was just a fluke.

“When I retell the story, I do think ‘Crikey I am lucky’. People have been saying I should by a lottery ticket.”