Woman’s terrifying escape as tree crashes through roof

A woman is lucky to be alive after a tree crashed through her bedroom roof missing her head by inches. It comes as the horror toll of Melbourne’s wild storms is revealed.

A selfless SES volunteer and his family narrowly escaped tragedy when a large tree fell on their Cockatoo home overnight.

SES volunteer Ben Owen had gone to help neighbours after wild winds lashed the area only to receive a phone call from his wife saying a huge tree had collapsed on their Haylock Street home.

Mr Owen was forced to break windows to rescue his wife and two daughters, aged 12 and 14, who were trapped inside their home.

He said they were just meters from a dire outcome.

“They are shaken, but they are OK,” he said.

Ben Owen’s wife and daughters were trapped in their Cockatoo home after a tree crashed through the roof.

Ben Owen’s Cockatoo home was crushed.

“My wife and two daughters were trapped in the home. One daughter said there were books flying off the bookshelf.

“We are shocked and it is overwhelming. We have been here for 18 years, this is well and truly home. We will have to bulldoze the house and rebuild, there is nothing to salvage.

“But fortunately we are all alive. I wouldn’t want to think about what could’ve happened.”

Mr Owen said earlier in the night his SES pager was “going crazy” and he had left his home to help colleagues in the area.

“My scared wife called me saying she heard a groaning sound before the house caved in,” he said.

“The girls had to jump into my arms.”

Mr Owen, who had been out responding to other calls for help, said his wife Melissa and children Katherine,12, and Eliza,14, had been lucky to escape serious injury.

“To think, if they had been in another part of the house, the outcome could have been very different,” he said.

“Their injuries will be the memories from this.”

Steve Froude, Mr Owen’s father-in-law, said it was “amazing” no one was hurt.

Two other homes in the street, about 48km south east from Melbourne, also had trees fallen on them.

CFA crews were cutting through fallen trees in nearby streets.

Meanwhile, just moments after Willow Swaneveld, 20, hit snooze on her 6am alarm, a large tree crushed her bedroom roof.

Ms Swaneveld, who had only just moved into the loft of a shed built by her late father, thought she was about to die.

“It almost killed me, it only just missed me by inches,” she recalled.

“Just as my head hit the pillow I heard a massive crack, and before I could even react I had a large branch above my head and the aircon above me was suddenly in my bed.

“I thought ‘this is it, this is how I’m going to go’. I put my head down and a millisecond later the branch had fallen. If I didn’t react or if I was still asleep, it would’ve hit me.”

A tree crashed through the roof of Ms Swaneveld’s home.

Ms Swaneveld, who immediately feared her mother had died in the storm, ran inside the main property to check on her family.

“I ran downstairs and locked my dog in the car, checked if dad’s ashes were okay and then went to check on my mum,” she explained.

“For that split second I thought I had lost my mum. It was terrifying.”

Ms Swaneveld had to pull a door off its hinge just to reach her mother, who had become trapped in her bedroom.

“She was okay but the whole roof was starting to cave in.”

The families’ kitchen was also completely destroyed during the freak weather event.

Ms Swaneveld said it was a miracle that her brother wasn’t home at the time, because a large branch fell into his room.

“Living in the hills, you’re always worried about this type of thing happening, but you never actually think it’s going to happen to you,” she said.

The family, who sadly lost their father in a tragic motorbike accident in March this year, had only just a week ago finished building the final touches of his beloved shed.

“We’ve heard about trees falling on to other people’s houses. I think this year we’ve been forced to learn that these things don’t just happen to other people,” she said.

“Just like thinking a motorbike accident wouldn’t take your father, we could never imagine a massive tree falling on our house on a Friday morning.”

A tree crashed through the roof of a Cockatoo home, missing the occupant by just inches.