Man escapes death from falling pole

By JASON GIMA WURI
A man narrowly escaped death when a falling power pole crushed the cabin of the Toyota LandCruiser he was driving near Ela Beach yesterday morning.
The power pole fell youths were cutting branches of trees in the Catholic church property next to Kenmore tower.
The man driving the vehicle, Pwapei Minol, appeared to be in shock after narrowly escaping death.
“I drove slowly through and stopped where I was because I realised that there were boys in the church premises who were cutting the okari tree branches,” he said.
“The cut branches were falling so I stopped to give way not realising that the branches fell directly onto the power lines connected to the power pole.
“Under the weight of the branches, the power pole gave way and fell on my vehicle and damaged the cabin.
“Miraculously it missed the driver’s cabin where I was and as the power pole fell, there was added risk of live power lines that fell all over the place so I had to quickly opened the offside seat and jump out,” Minol said.
By-standers confirmed the incident, saying the power pole fell so suddenly that it completely smashed the cabin of the vehicle.
PNG Power linesmen who were at the scene could not comment but said the base of the power pole had rotted.
“The youths from the church premises should have contacted us to help them clear those branches because that is part of our job,” one of the linesmen said.
Efforts to get comments from the Catholic church were unsuccessful.