Man's incredible escape after car crushes his tent at festival
A man has had an extraordinary escape after a car crushed his tent at the Falls Festival in Lorne, Victoria.
He claims event organisers ignored concerns about the danger of where he was forced to camp.
Now, Andrew Pepper is lucky to be alive after being crush beneath a car that slid down a hill as he slept.
“If I was lying on my back – the chances are I probably would’ve died,” Andrew said.
It happened on New Year’s Day as people were leaving the popular music festival.
“The sensation was that I was getting squashed and like you couldn’t move,” he said.
“The car was on me for a minute or so.”
His girlfriend Elizabeth Hughes called desperately for help.
“It was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen, to see him trapped under this car and I just kept screaming, ‘get it off him, get it off him’,” she said.
Friends pulled him from the car, fearing the worst.
Incredibly, Andrew came away with only minor neck and head injuries.
“I’ve still got symptoms of delayed concussion, so I’m going in to have an MRI for potential bleeding in my brain,” Andrew said.
It was also a close call for his friends.
“It didn’t hit home until I saw the car on top of the tent,” friend Rebecca Dickson said.
“I’d been in there two minutes before.”
Falls Festival organisers decide where people can camp.
Andrew’s friends repeatedly complained about how steep the site was, but say they were ignored.
It’s not the first time the Lorne festival has come under fire.
In 2016, dozens of festival-goers were injured in a stampede while exiting an overcrowded tent.
Andrew is recovering at home, thankful to have survived his ordeal.
“If the car had’ve gone over my head, it would be a different situation,” he said,
“I probably wouldn’t have walked out of there at all.”
