Couple’s lucky escape
A couple had a lucky escape after a metre-thick branch ‘‘completely crushed’’ their caravan last night.
The branch landed on the front of the single-axle caravan, and on the 9kg LPG bottle, narrowly missing the sleeping campers inside.
William and Margaret Liddell, from Tauranga, were spending a few nights at Horahora Domain, near the Piarere Water Ski Club south of Cambridge, when the drama unfolded about 1am yesterday.
‘‘The branch came right down on the bike rack, between the caravan and our car which was attached,’’ William said. ‘‘It took out the window above our heads and gave us one hell of a fright. Luckily, no one was hurt.’’
The couple thought the tree was an ideal place to park up for the night.
‘‘The trees looked nice and shady but now we know they are dangerous.’’
The couple didn’t want to make a fuss because it would worry their adult children. But they hoped by speaking about their near-miss, it would encourage the authorities to take a look at other trees around the domain to make sure another branch didn’t fall.
Other campers gathered around were also worried that the busy summer season was approaching when the domain was a popular camping spot for holidaymakers.
The Liddells said they had insurance and AMI was coming to assess the caravan. They weren’t sure whether it could be fixed.
‘‘What have I learned from this? Well I think there is a god up there who is looking out for us, has to be,’’ William said.
Tirau Chief Fire Officer Jim Phillips said if the couple had been parked one metre further forward, ‘‘it would have been a fatality for sure’’.
‘‘They were so lucky. Where it broke off the trunk, it was just about 1-metre across,’’ he said. ‘‘It was quite large.’’
Phillips said his team had to scramble, in the early hours of the morning, to find an earthmoving contractor with a nearby machine to help lift the branch which was resting on the caravan’s 9kg gas bottle.
‘‘We needed the digger to lift the branch so we could make the gas cylinder safe and also get enough weight off the caravan to get it off the tow ball of the vehicle.’’
Fortunately, the gas bottle was turned off at the valve, he said.
‘‘If it had fractured the line, it would have made it a little different.’’
Phillips said the couple managed to make their way outside and call 111.
‘‘They were shaken once it sunk in and they realised how lucky they were. They were pretty good when we got there but a little bit shocked as time went by.’’
The Tirau Volunteer Fire Brigade didn’t get to return to the station until 4.30am.
‘‘Usually we’ll go out and lift a branch off a caravan and it’s all over but that definitely wasn’t the case.’’
Horahora man Alan Eason, who lived on a property next to the domain, said it was not the first time a large branch had fallen down in the domain.
He said he had raised the problem with the Waipa District Council and would do so again, after the latest fall.
Waipa District Council had been approached for comment.