An elderly woman had a narrow escape today after leylandii trees saved her home from serious damage after a trailer uncoupled from a tractor and careered through her bank side boundary hedge.
Workmen, police and neighbours rushed to check she was all right as a major recovery job got under way.
The accident happened at Prickwillow near Ely and later in the afternoon forced the road to close for more than an hour whilst heavy duty lifting equipment pulled the trailer clear.
The accident happened shortly before 2pm as the tractor and trailer combination came over the bridge towards Ely and a mechanical fault caused the trailer to break free and plunge down the bank.
The trailer was carrying motorised roller equipment used by a local farm. The trailer destroyed numerous leylandli trees and came within feet of the bungalow nestling almost unnoticed down a bank.
'It was fortunate that no one was hurt,' one villager said. 'What's also lucky is that normally by this time of the year the lady would have brought in people to trim back the trees like she does every year. Only this year they haven't been yet'
The trees provided a protective cushion both for the bungalow home and for the trailer, which was later up righted and the equipment on board, appeared at first glance to be undamaged.
Police remained on duty for several hours, closing the road for the final major recovery work and earlier monitoring single file traffic whilst the workers awaited the breakdown rescue trucks to arrive.
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