By Marc Walker
The Daily Star
Headley, HANTS, UK — A MAN drowned after a car was directed into flash floods by a sat-nav.
A five-foot wave submerged the VW Polo, trapping the victim and his dog.
Firefighters used ladders from both banks to reach the car before smashing a window, but the 52-year-old man and his pet were found dead.
The driver, believed to be his 54-year-old wife, escaped from the car, which was swept 200 yards downstream.
Last night she was being treated for shock.
Locals said lost motorists regularly got stuck at the dangerous crossing in Headley, Hants, after being led there by sat-nav. Simon Hiscock, 48, who rushed to the scene, said the hatchback was “flipped over and tossed about like a log”.
Just 50 miles away at Hythe Marina, Hants, Harry Harvey, 14, nearly died after becoming trapped chesthigh in mud flats. His mum Helen said he was five minutes from disappearing below the mud before police dragged him to safety with a lifebelt.
In Plymouth, Toni Hoare said she and five-month-old daughter Winnie were “lucky to be alive” after a 70fthigh tree crashed down on their house. Toni, 32, was feeding the baby in bed when the 300-year-old beech smashed through the roof. Britain is braced for more gales and floods, with up to 30mm of rain.
Thousands of homes in the southwestwere without power. The Badminton Horse Trials, Gloucs, and Wednesday’s races at Ascot Racecourse, Berks, were cancelled. Last night around 1,000 people were evacuated from Northampton’s Billing Aquadrome holiday park, after a flash flood warning for the area. April was the wettest on record.
But in Somerset, one man sped through Frome on a jet ski. And pals Tharam Rajakumar and Tom Rees paddled an inflatable across a cricket pitch near Taunton.
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