A digger driver was “as lucky as hell” to survive when a bridge collapsed seconds after he drove his 14-tonne vehicle on to it during Wednesday’s Storm Frank flooding in Perthshire.
Rodger Brown was forced to use his vehicle’s rear bucket to pull the digger back on to solid land before the bridge gave way completely.
The 34-year-old had been helping to stop flood water from entering a nearby property just before the drama unfolded at around 11am on the Bleaton Hallett bridge, north of Bridge of Cally.
The bridge, which crosses the Black Water, was just one of the casualties of Storm Frank, which saw 85.6mm of rain fall at Tyndrum in 24 hours.
Rodger, who lives in Blairgowrie, said: “I was heading home. I’d already been across the bridge to a job a wee bit up the road, where a house was getting flooded.
“A police vehicle had just been over the bridge when I got back to it, so they were lucky it didn’t drop with them.
“I stopped at the bridge and got out and went on to it to take a video of the water fleein’ down.
“I got back in the digger and as soon as I got four wheels on the bridge it dropped about 40cm.
“At that point panic set in and the adrenaline started to go. I thought ‘I need to either get this digger off the bridge or jump’. As soon as I got it off it dropped by a metre and a half.
“I was lucky I got it off the bridge because I think if I was still in the digger when it dropped the weight would have put it into the water and with the force of the water that would have been me, the bridge and the digger gone.
“I had to use the back actor (bucket) to lift myself up I couldn’t just put it in reverse and drive off because it had dropped so much.
“What held it at the 40cm for a minute and a half I don’t know because there was nothing underneath. If it dropped the metre and a half at the start I would have been out the window.”
The father of three added: “I’m very lucky as it only dropped 40cm and gave me a chance to get off. It was about a minute and a half but it seemed much longer.
“After I got off the bridge I was shaking like mad my heart was going 1,000 beats a minute.
“I think I’m as lucky as hell. Somebody was watching over me because it could have been a lot worse.”
A spokeswoman for Perth and Kinross Council said: “The east abutment on the bridge at Bleaton Hallet on the C446 Alyth to Glenshee road has been damaged due to high water levels. The road is closed and will remain so until a full assessment has been carried out.”