1/6 Not much is left of Ad’s car (photo: Toby de Kort/SQ Vision).
Ad Elissen (80) from Oss escaped death on Thursday when a large tree crushed his car on the N65. The man saw the tree coming towards him out of the corner of his eye and had no way to avoid it. “But tonight I can safely sing that there is a guardian angel,” he says afterwards.
He is with the recovery company, because his car, a Dodge Caliber, is a total loss due to the enormous impact. He has crawled through the eye of the needle, he realizes that all too well. Ad turned out to be on his way to Belgium, to get cheap fuel and rolling tobacco. He can still see how the tree came towards him.
“I saw a movement in the corner of my eye, that tree came from the left. I tried to brake and dived towards the door myself. In retrospect, that was a wise choice.”
“I got the steering wheel against my chest and a lot of glass at the same time.”
A total of four cars were hit by the tree, Ad led the way with his car. The tree landed in the middle of his windshield, breaking the glass and sending his dashboard flying towards him. “I got the steering wheel against my chest and a lot of glass at the same time.”
He estimates that he was driving about sixty kilometers per hour when the tree landed on his car. A car behind him crashed into his car and also ended up under the tree.
“I crawled out of it myself.”
A few glaziers were working across the street. They rushed to Ad and managed to get him out of the car. “They opened the door and asked me if I could still move, if I could get out of the car. Then I crawled out myself.”
The first thing he did was call his wife to tell her he was okay. “And that it could take a while before I got home, because the car wasn’t going to work anymore. I had seen that.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me and there are plenty of cars.”
The emergency services quickly arrived on the scene and an ambulance employee checked whether he had any injuries. “I still have some chest pain and my hand was bleeding through the glass. But that’s not too bad, I’m fine and there are plenty of cars.”
The tree fell on four cars, causing extensive damage.