- Peter Stuart, 63, had just woken when the lorry crashed into his bedroom wall
A man who escaped being crushed to death in bed when a truck smashed into his home says he may never sleep in his bedroom again.
Peter Stuart had just woken when the 40ft container lorry carrying solar panels failed to negotiate a tight turn outside his bungalow in the hamlet of Gammaton Cross, near Bideford, Devon.
It overturned, demolishing part of an external wall and sending slabs of reinforced concrete onto the unoccupied side of his double bed.
Mr Stuart, 63, said: ‘It was like a bomb exploding.
‘I was half-asleep and for a moment I thought I was dreaming. But the clouds of dust were very real, and I couldn’t stop coughing.
‘The thing that saved me was a cross-trainer by the collapsed wall. It got knocked over but it took the weight of the concrete and it shielded me. Without it, I wouldn’t have survived.
‘The realisation didn’t hit me at first. It just didn’t sink in. But 48 hours later I started getting the shakes and experiencing flashbacks.
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‘I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to sleep in that bedroom again.’
Part-time carer Mr Stuart, who also helps run a B&B with partner Steve Edwards, said the accident happened at around 3.15pm – a time he normally awakes from his night shift.
‘Steve often takes an afternoon nap that side of the bed,’ he said. ‘Had he done so, he’d undoutedly have been squashed and killed.
‘The lorry driver, who was foreign, got out OK. He didn’t speak much English but he seemed to have a route plan to get to the nearby solar farm.
‘Either he couldn’t understand it or he was ignoring it – like he hadn’t been fully briefed.
‘Local farmers know these roads. They know the camber outside our home and they take care when turning there.
‘It felt like this driver just decided to take a run at it.’
Mr Edwards said that the previous week two lorries delivering to the Sonnedix solar farm became stuck on the same turn.
‘This is why I’m so very angry,’ he said. ‘We reported that incident to Sonnedix and warned them a serious accident was waiting to happen if their contractor’s delivery lorries continued to approach the solar farm along this road.
‘They promised it would never happen again. Six days later, Pete is nearly killed.
‘To me that is negligence, plain and simple.
‘I suffer from an incurable neurological condition and I could do without the stress of mess everywhere, insurance loss adjusters and tens of thousands of pounds of re-building work.
‘I’m still reeling from it all. It has been a traumatic to say the least.’
‘We have a lot of bookings and this is a major disruption to our business. Fortunately our guests stay in an adjoining cottage so they will not be affected.’
Neighbours echoed the couple’s concerns. Retired Port of London cargo supervisor Patrick Smith, 72, said: ‘No 40ft container lorry is ever going to turn that corner safely.
‘We were told the solar farm had a traffic management plan but when I rang council planners they told me no such plan existed.
‘If it does exist then it clearly isn’t working. There’s not even a sign warning drivers against accessing the place from this direction.
‘Local residents are fed up with all the commercial traffic. We’re so frustrated. It’s not just the HGVs – you’ve got white van men turning up with orders for the site workers.
‘But they don’t know where they’re going either. They go round and round knocking on doors asking for directions. The traffic is awful.’
Another neighbour, who declined to be named, said: ‘It’s unbelievable that this solar farm got planning permission in the first place.
‘This is rural Devon. The lanes were made for hay carts – not articulated lorries. Sonnedix needs to sort out its logistics company, quite quickly now.’
Sonnedix, which constructs solar farms under the UK government’s Contracts for Difference Scheme, designed to provide energy price and revenue stability, operates in ten countries globally.
A spokesman said: ‘We are aware of the incident that took place involving a third-party supplier delivering equipment to our site.
‘While we understand no serious injuries have been reported, we were very concerned to hear about damage to private property.
‘We’ve launched an investigation to understand what happened and have temporarily stopped transport to the site. We are in close contact with our supplier to put in place steps to ensure a similar incident does not happen again and to minimise wider disruption for residents.’