Tree crushes car, breaks woman's bones after wild weather thrashes east coast
A woman's bones were broken after a tree crushed her car while she was driving in New South Wales.
The incident happened hours after severe weather thrashed the north coast.
The driver is lucky to be alive after a massive gumtree flattened her car while she was driving near near Coffs Harbour at 6pm on Wednesday.
She was trapped inside her car for two hours as emergency crews desperately tried to free her.
After being rushed to hospital with a number of broken bones, she is currently in a stable condition.
On Wednesday, the Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe weather warning for the state's east coast, with damaging winds, heavy rain, flash flooding and abnormally high tides.
Damaging winds have already hit the Gold Coast and Byron Bay and are now moving north and expected to hit Queensland's south-east.
The wild weather is caused by a low pressure system off the coast, which is expected to move slowly northwards overnight before moving east over the Tasman Sea on Thursday.
BOM predicts up to 200mm of rain over the next 24 hours.
The warning comes after areas further south around the Hunter Valley were hit by bad weather.
Mooral Creek, near Port Macquarie, had 112mm of rain by 11am, with other areas recording around 100mm.
Strong winds also lashed the area, with gales in the Hunter Valley reaching almost 100km/h.
Winds across the region are expected to reach up to 70km/h, with Murrurundi Gap in the Hunter Valley already recording gusts of 98km/h shortly before 4am.
Surf Life Saving NSW is predicting swells of up to four metres along the coast, with BOM warning locals to expect damaging surf conditions.
State emergency services and NSW Police have issued pleas for motorists to avoid driving through waterways.
NSW SES has had nearly 160 calls from residents and they expect this number to grow as the weather becomes more severe in the afternoon.
Despite frustrated warnings to motorists not to enter flood waters, volunteers have had to perform more than 450 rescues so far this year.
