Cotswolds house-sitter narrowly avoided being impaled by scaffolding

A woman has revealed she missed being impaled by just millimetres after a lorry ploughed into a Cotswolds house, sending scaffolding poles through the windows ‘like spears’.

One of the iron bars shot past her head as she tidied up in the kitchen at the Grade ll-listed property in Tetbury, Gloucestershire, less than a mile from King Charles’ Highgrove home.

The woman, who is in her 70s, was house-sitting for friends when the HGV truck rammed into the front of the £1.4m house. 

The smash sent several iron bars from the scaffolding through through three of the 18th century property’s five front windows. 

Other bars ripped though the slate roof, leaving a gaping hole.

Pictures taken from the scene show a mangled mass of scaffolding teetering on the verge of collapse. The broken windows have now been covered with plasterboard.  

The woman, who asked not to be named,  confirmed her ‘miracle escape’ to the Daily Mail. 

She said: ‘I think it would be fair to say I’m lucky to still be alive. It was a very close shave, but by some miracle I’m still here.’

She said the smash happened at ‘a bad time’ because the house, in the historic town’s Silver Street, was being prepared for sale on the property market.

‘It’s all in the hands of insurance companies now,’ she said. ‘Who knows how long that could all take.

‘I’m only here to look after the place for the owners, who are friends of mine.

‘I don’t think they’d want me to say any more because they won’t want this to affect any potential sale.’

The wrecked scaffolding, which was in place so workmen could repair a chimney, has now been removed and the smashed windows have been boarded over with wooden panelling.

A neighbour said the poles ripped through the property ‘like spears’ and shards of glass were ‘sent flying everywhere’.

‘God knows how they missed her, but mercifully they did,’ the neighbour said. ‘She’d been standing by the window in the kitchen at the front of the house at the time and one of them missed her by millimetres. The impact sent them shooting through the windows and against the building like spears.

‘Shards of glass were sent flying everywhere.’

Another resident, who lives opposite the now boarded up property said: ‘I was indoors at the time and heard an almighty bang. I thought a bomb had gone off.

‘I ran outside and saw a lorry half up the pavement outside the house.It had had scaffolding put up a couple of weeks earlier because the chimney was being fixed.

‘The base of the scaffolding had been built up from the pavement at the front of the house and in fairness to the lorry driver, it is a pinch point on this particular part of Silver Street and it must have hit the scaffolding hard.

‘We’ve all been campaigning for years to have HGVs banned from this street because the road is so narrow and the bend here is tight. It was designed for coach and horses, not massive HGVs.

‘The lorry must have rammed the scaffolding as it tried to pass the house and sent quite a few of the bars through the windows and roof.

‘The lorry got stuck in the wreckage and it took all day to shift it. We had numerous police cars on the scene within minutes, as well as a couple of ambulances and fire engines. It was a hell of a drama and the whole road was closed for about three days while they sorted it out.’

The six-bedroom property, which has a large rear garden and tennis court, is expected to have a £1.4m price tag when it goes on the market…once it’s been fixed up.