How smoking saved woman from injury

December 2003

You have often heard it said how smoking can seriously damage your health, but for one Wexford woman last week, smoking saved her from what would almost certainly have been serious injury.

In fact, popping out for a cigarette break from her work at the Wexford Area Partnership offices on Mallin Street last Friday may have been one of the luckiest things the woman ever did.

The receptionist had just stepped outside when a car which had been left in a parking space across the street, with the handbrake off, started to roll in the direction of the office.

The car, which was carrying two young children who were strapped into rear safety seats, crashed into the window of the Partnership offices, sending large shards of glass flying towards where the woman would have been sitting. Seconds after the accident happened, the car’s driver (who was mother of the child passengers, who luckily escaped injury) rushed into the office in a distressed state.

She had stopped in Mallin Street to allow an older child visit the World of Wonder toy shop, and wondering what was delaying him, she left the car for a moment to go check on him.

Unfortunately, she left the handbrake off, and as she reached the toy shop, she looked around to see her car rolling down the street.