 A Toronto man narrowly escaped death when a neighbour's maple came crashing down into his car. (STAN BEHAL/Sun Media)
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An Etobicoke man is lucky to be alive after a massive tree branch came crashing down on his car as he was parking it yesterday morning, crushing his vehicle and very nearly him along with it.
If he had pulled up even a second or two later, the 46-year-old surely would have been killed.
Nick Cruz was on his way to work at St. Joseph's Hospital around 8:25 a.m. and was pulling into an empty spot between two other cars on Claude Ave. -- near Queen St. W. and Roncesvales Ave. -- when the huge limb snapped and toppled onto his red Volkswagen Jetta, smashing through the car's roof just behind his head.
"I never saw it coming. There was a loud bang and then I felt a pain in my head," Cruz said yesterday after being checked out and released from the hospital where he works. "If it had landed over the front seat, I'd probably be a goner," he added. "It was very scary."
The roof of the car actually hit him in the head and Cruz thinks he may have blacked out momentarily. He came to immediately and was feeling the top of his head for blood as area residents came rushing to his aid.
With the roof of the Jetta caved in and the doors too damaged for him to open, Cruz had to lay across the front seats and wait for emergency crews to arrive and help him get out.
"I couldn't believe how big the branch was," Cruz said, which stretched across the street and damaged several other vehicles. "I'm very lucky to be alive."
And Cruz pointed out that being just 5-foot-6 may also have prevented serious injury or paralysis.
"Sometimes it's an advantage," he said with a laugh.
And he couldn't help but feel thankful there was nobody in his backseat and that there were no children walking along the sidewalk on their way to school when the incident occurred.
People who live on the street were stunned to see Cruz was relatively unscathed.
"He's a lucky man," Elizabeth Schreuders said. "It was not his time yet."
