Three residents of Colonarie encountered a near death experience last week Saturday evening which has left them feeling as if they have cheated death.{{more}}

“Ba dang!” This was the echo Vernon Nelson said reverberated through his home just after 7 p.m.

Outside, a vehicle owned by C.O.Williams had just collided with his house, breaking down the walls of the section where he plies a trade selling animal feed.

Still in disbelief that he had escaped the mishap, the 65-year-old told SEARCHLIGHT that less than two minutes before the accident he was sitting in the spot where the vehicle struck.

Nelson added that sitting on the outside of the business near to the road were Yoland ‘Ce Ce’ Stephenson and Linden Baptiste.

Now that he can joke about the incident, Nelson mused that “a piece of pork” almost cost him his life.

He said earlier that afternoon, his common law wife Paulina John had promised to bring him a piece of pork from a wedding that she had gone to.

“I was sitting on a white chair right where the vehicle hit. I was thinking about going to eat, but I was delaying because my Madam went to a wedding and I was waiting on a piece of pork that she was going to bring for me,” said Nelson.

“I was getting hungry and I tell myself she might not get here till 9 o’clock. So something say ‘get up man and go and get some food in the pot’. So I get up and take the bread from the table and I came round to the Living Room. Soon as I take a step to go to the kitchen. I heard one big bang and like the house start to fall in,” Nelson noted, stressing that he knew a vehicle had hit the house located just a few feet from the Colonarie main road.

Nelson said he was convinced that his friends who were sitting nearby were struck by the vehicle. On the other hand, Stephenson and Baptiste, who had dashed for safety after witnessing the collision of the jeep and a car travelling in the opposite direction, thought Nelson was hit by the vehicle and might have died.

“Maybe if I had got the pork, I would have been there still,” said Nelson, as he expressed his gratitude to God for sending an angel to move him on time.

“We were there speaking, the car was going down and the jeep was coming up and they collided,” said Stephenson, as she recalled the evening’s drama that took placed just after 7.

“The vehicle started heading in our direction and Linden pull me towards the bay side. When I got up I called Vernon. After I didn’t see him, I run in his house because I thought the vehicle had hit him and he was in the rubble,” said Stephenson, who claimed that she had given her life to God only three weeks ago.

She said that she was happy to see Nelson unhurt.

Just outside Nelson’s home, Baptiste’s brother Lennox “Bongo” Lawrence lost his life on February 3rd, 2009, when he was struck by a vehicle.