A CHARITY worker on a voluntary scheme in Africa is lucky to be alive today after leaping from his truck seconds before it was swept away in a flash flood.

Retired fireman Roger Green, 60, is part of a team laying a water pipeline in a desert area of northern Kenya.

He and his colleagues were crossing a river on the way to the project site near Mount Kulal when their heavily-laden vehicle became bogged down.

As locals yelled in Swahili: "Water! ... Water!" the team only just had time to jump to safety before a great wave engulfed their truck. Nearly all their equipment was lost.

Roger's wife Sally, at home in Pikes Hill, Lyndhurst, heard about the near-disaster last weekend when Roger got back to Nairobi and could e-mail her from a cyber-cafe.

"Luckily, by the time I heard what had happened, it was all over and there was nothing to worry about," she said.

"It's ironic that Roger is trying to bring water to a part of the land which has had no rain for ten years, and he almost gets swept away by a wall of water caused by heavy rain further south."

Sally, a former teacher at Noadswood School in Dibden Purlieu, is used to her adventurous husband surviving by the skin of his teeth.

Both members of the Testwood Baptist Church in Totton, they have been sponsored many times to risk the dangers of the dark continent for the charity African Inland Mission (AIM).

"During Roger's last visit to Kenya, his delivery truck was inches away from dropping off a 2,000-foot precipice. Just one boulder saved it," she said.

"Another time, the driver of the truck had diabetes and went into a kind of trance. He drove into a huge pothole and wrecked the truck.

"There are lots of situations like this in Africa. There is no AA or garage to call on. But Roger is very gifted - a good man in a crisis to fix a break-down or rig up a solar heater."

The Greens, parents of three, are agreed that charity work is the best way to use their retirement.

"Roger was in the Fleet Air Arm and then served as a fireman for 23 years, first at St Mary's in Southampton and then at Lyndhurst," said Sally.

"He had to retire at 55 and he felt he had so much more to give. He could have used his time on DIY at home, but how much more useful it is to build a church or a pipeline for a community in Africa which has almost nothing."

The AIM team survived the flash flood but Roger and his colleagues now have another fight on their hands - replacing their lost equipment , especially their truck.

"The insurance people won't pay enough to replace the vehicle because it was quite old. But if we have to use a really ancient one-trip Landrover, that will do, as long as we complete the project," said Sally.

"Roger probably won't be back until the end of the year, and I would really love to go out there too. Africa is the sort of country you grow to love."

To offer help to the AIM project, contact John Cunningham at Testwood Baptist Church, Salisbury Road, Totton, on 07957 24 56 22.