Forest Hill girl 'could have died' after tree crashes through house and lands on her bed

Courtney Woolgar, 17, was saved after deciding at the last minute to sleep over at her friend’s house before the tree crashed into her bedroom at 7am Monday (October 28) during the storm.

Her family are now in temporary accommodation and could be homeless for six months as the Catling Close building has been declared unsafe.

Mum Susan Meacock said: "If she'd been in her bedroom she would be dead. Her whole room's been obliterated.

"She was staying at her friend’s house so she was lucky.

"She could have had four or five friends sleeping in that room as she usually does and the project manager told me that if that was the case none of them would have survived."

Ms Meacock, 48, cried as she saw the damage to her house on Tuesday, describing it as a "disaster movie".

She said: "There is a 50-tonne tree on the back of my house. The fact that no one died means that everything is alright but I didn’t take anything when leaving the house, everything is in there.

"It was only me and my son who were in the house when it happened. I’s all a bit surreal really, we just sort of ran

"There are no bedrooms anymore. It’s all the kids stuff, all their pictures and everything -  my daughter's things are destroyed."

Son Harvey, 15, said: "I heard a tree crack and I saw it falling from the house. I ducked underneath the staircase and a load of plaster and rubble came down on the stairs.

"I went back upstairs, grabbed a laundry bag and stuck my PlayStation and my laptop in it before running out."

The family say the tree, which damaged neighbouring properties too, was the biggest and oldest tree in Forest Hill. Workers were trying to remove it from the properties yesterday.

Ms Meacock said: "All the neighbours were absolutely amazing, everyone was just amazing.

"It was brilliant, everyone’s house was open and it occurred to me that actually community, family and friends are what really matters."