A JOINER who crashed into a fallen tree on his way to work had a lucky escape when a second tree fell on his car.

Minutes after the crash, a second tree fell onto Richard Bell's empty Mitsubishi Shogun as he called police from his nearby home.

He set off for work at 6.30am on Saturday when he hit the first tree, downed in the gales, only a few hundred yards from his house in Easingwold, North Yorkshire.

"It was pitch black and I didn't see it until it was too late. It was just there in the headlights and then they went out and I came to a stop on the other side of the tree," he said. "The police had already been called about the tree and had put down flashing blue lights, but they had blown over."

Mr Bell ran back to his house to report the accident and emerged to find the Mitsubishi crushed by the second tree.

He said: "If I hadn't been able to get out of the car, I would have been in trouble."