“IT’S lucky no one was killed.”

Those are the words of a shaken family after part of a 30ft tree crashed down through their garden fence and narrowly missed motorists on a nearby road.

A driver had a narrow escape when it smashed into the back of their car as they drove along Landseer Road, Sholing, yesterday, as falling branches scratched the side of a silver Vauxhall Vectra parked opposite.

The alarm was raised by 15-year-old Adam Smith, a Daily Echo paperboy, who was at his home in Canterbury Avenue when the giant oak tree fell at 11.30am.

His frantic parents Keith and Nicky dashed home and started clearing the road.

Adam said: “I was just watching TV and the dogs started barking, so I came downstairs to have a look.

“There was a loud, slow motion-type noise.”

Mr Smith, 47, a building site manager, said: “It’s a miracle no one was hurt.

“I am surprised that it came down now rather than in the bad winds a few months ago.”

The family told how they paid for tree experts to carry out hundreds of pounds worth of maintenance on it last summer, and were told that it was healthy in 2012.

Tree surgeons will cut down the rest of the oak today after deeming it too dangerous to leave standing.

Mrs Smith, 46, a delivery driver, said: “We have done everything possible to maintain it but nothing had been done to it for years before we moved here.

“We love the tree. We had no issues with it at all because we thought we had done everything to make sure it was OK.

“If Adam had been out on his paper round any earlier he would have been walking past and could have been hit.

“I’m just in disbelief that it could come down like that – it could have killed someone.

“It’s a miracle that no one was hurt.”