{"id":496177,"date":"2026-06-26T07:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T07:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/496177\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T07:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T07:08:10","slug":"new-plymouth-man-survives-tree-crash-in-wild-weather-buys-lotto-ticket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/496177\/","title":{"rendered":"New Plymouth man survives tree crash in wild weather, buys Lotto ticket"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JohnJohn Connell’s light truck, pictured after the tree had been cut away and the injured driver extracted and taken to hospital. Photo \/ Tony Etheridge<\/p>\n

Connell was \u201cvery sore\u201d but had come out of the crash \u201cvery lightly all things considered\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it happened I thought I had at least one broken leg. My left leg is very bruised and battered \u2013 we thought we may have had a fracture in the bottom part where the steering wheel has gone into my thighs.<\/p>\n

\u201c[And] my hands are black and blue \u2026 I can hardly move my fingers \u2026 and I have a small cut on my head \u2013 the top of my head took a lot of impact from the windscreen, which ended up going outwards, and a lot of glass showered everywhere inside the truck.<\/p>\n

\u201cApart from that everything else isn\u2019t too bad, but I\u2019ve certainly got some aches and pains coming out now.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he left home this morning it had stopped raining but the wind was \u201cblowing a howling gale\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe tree came down on Carrington Rd, south of New Plymouth. <\/p>\n

He hit the falling tree \u201cat the same time it came down\u201d, Connell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I saw was the tree \u2026 I just instinct-tried to turn but the whole thing was right across the road. There was nowhere to actually go.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only thought he had time for was, \u2018Oh no\u2019, Connell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen just bang, and my legs were just pinned on the floor. The horn was jammed on and I turned the engine off on the truck and got my phone out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe damage has all been done from halfway up to the top [of the truck]. It hit just below the windscreen and bent all the pillars and the windscreen and buckled the doors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FirstFirst responders at the scene on Carrington Rd after the crash early this morning. Photo \/ Tony Etheridge<\/p>\n

He immediately called 111.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was fortunate. I had my little lunch bag and my phone was in my lunch bag next to me \u2026 I was totally pinned and knew I was going to need someone to cut the truck open.\u201d<\/p>\n

Firefighters cut the driver\u2019s door off and then managed to open the front of the truck so the steering column could be moved forward to free Connell\u2019s legs.<\/p>\n

Despite his presence of mind in being able to call for help, there was no escaping from the pain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in quite a bit of pain \u2026 they kept asking me on a scale of one to 10 and I was around a seven and eight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"HisHis Nissan Atlas truck \u2013 pictured after the fallen tree was cut away \u2013 is a write-off, John Connell says. Photo \/ Tony Etheridge<\/p>\n

He was grateful to all who came to help, Connell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were three ladies there dealing with me from the ambulance \u2026 [and] the guys from the fire department tried to make sure things were safe and worked pretty quick on trying to get the vehicle open and get me free.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t say enough for the fire brigade guys, and the ambulance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those working at the scene had a lucky escape themselves when another tree came down<\/a> just after they\u2019d cleared the area.<\/p>\n

Connell\u2019s friend Tony Etheridge was among those who came to help after the crash.<\/p>\n

\u201c[We\u2019d] just cleared the vehicles [and got] the truck on to the tow truck, just because with the wind there, the second tree looked like it was about to come down. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo sooner had we pulled the truck out of the way, the second tree came right down on top of where we were.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Connell’s light truck, pictured after the tree had been cut away and the injured driver extracted and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2840,6127,3241,138,3391,248281,3549,15979,634,6097,42,78,2514,6804,10506,2513,5158,117,43,529,2738,49267,33140,19875,10507,40,38,41,39,15981,23857,4998,1316,15391],"class_list":["post-496177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-across","tag-already","tag-bought","tag-business","tag-buys","tag-cheated","tag-crash","tag-crashed","tag-death","tag-down","tag-headlines","tag-in","tag-island","tag-light","tag-lotto","tag-lower","tag-man","tag-new","tag-news","tag-north","tag-owner","tag-plymouth","tag-survives","tag-swept","tag-ticket","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-tree","tag-truck","tag-weather","tag-when","tag-wild"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}