Lucky Lil Coombes reckoned she escaped death by seconds when a corrugated metal garage roof crashed into her garden.
Moments earlier Lil, from Louis Drive, Rayleigh, had been in the garden herself, but just nipped back into the house for her coat.
She said: "I was just in the garden moving the plants.
"It was a bit cold so I came in to get my coat and all of a sudden the roof of next door's garage came crashing down where I'd been standing.
"I'd have been killed if I'd still been out there."
Published Monday October 28, 2002
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