Miraculous escape for two children

Press, 21 January 1983, Page 1

Miraculous escape for two children

Two young children had a miraculous escape in stormbattered Halswell on Wednesday evening when the wall of their bedroom was blown in, seconds after they were taken from their beds. Mr John Wilson said his two daughters, aged six and four, had just gone to bed when the wind hit their Halswell Junction Road house.

“I dashed upstairs and grabbed the two girls from their beds and had just got out of the room when the wall crashed in where they had been lying," he said yesterday.

"It was so close — a minute later and they would have been under all that debris.

"I had to go back up the stairs to get my young son. He has just learned to walk and he followed me when I went to get the girls.

"As I came back down the stairs I could hear the door splintering behind me.

“We had to hide under the table downstairs to save ourselves.

“It was so terrifying. I don’t know’ how long it lasted. It was terrible. We just huddled there until it was all over."

Mr Wilson is a builder and has spent the last 18 months and many thousands of dollars renovating his house.

“A couple of minutes and nearly all that work is ruined." he said. A double garage and extensions at the back of the house'were destroyed when a large tree fell on them. The inside of the house was also extensively damaged.

“The place is insured as far as materials are concerned but not to cover my labour," he said. Another house that Mr Wilson is building nearby lost its roof.