A tradie says he’s lucky to be alive after a metal pole smashed through his windscreen in a terrifying near-miss.
Melbourne underwater plumber Paul Weiser heard an ‘almighty bang’ while navigating the dark and slippery conditions in Patterson Lakes in the city’s south-east early on Wednesday morning.
He initially thought he’d been in a crash until he pulled over and got out of his van.
A two metre long steel pole had smashed through the front windscreen and impaled the front interior, narrowly missing the driver’s seat.
A plumber is lucky to be alive after this pole impaled through the windscreen of his van
‘I’m like ‘What the hell just happened?” Mr Weiser recalled to Seven News.
‘It came from nowhere! I didn’t even see it.’
‘It was, like, literally 10cm from my head. I (was) like ‘holy crap!”
Despite pieces of glass flying onto his face and eyes, Mr Weiser was uninjured but shaken by the frightening ordeal.
He’s grateful that he was holding his coffee at the time.
He would have otherwise been impaled as he usually leans with his arm on the centre console.
‘If I didn’t have the coffee in my hand, it (the post) would have just gone straight through my head,’ he said.
‘It’s full on, I look at (the photos) now and I go ‘Oh my god’.’
‘Lucky. Very lucky to be alive.’
The pole (pictured in the van) missed Paul Weiser sitting in the driver’s seat by centimetres
A woman driving behind him told Mr Weiser afterwards that she was also hit by something that she believed fell from a truck ahead of them.
‘I said ‘I didn’t see a truck’,’ he said.
‘She goes ‘Oh it was way ahead’.’
Mr Weiser has since had his windscreen replaced and is back on the road.
But he’s a lot more cautious following the terrifying near-miss.
‘I think it was a one-off but this morning on the Eastlink, I did back off from another ute that had stuff (on it),’ he said.
‘I think today I’m a bit more aware of (a load that’s not) tight.’
Paul Weiser (pictured) lived to tell the tale of his terrifying ordeal
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