A CARPET fitter had a lucky escape after he narrowly avoided being hit by a car as it crashed through the window of a lawyers’ office in Tillicoultry.

The tradesman was left shaken after a 66-year-old driving a Honda CR-V Estate careered through the front door and window of Watersrule on Friday evening.

Emergency crews rushed to the building, beside the Co-op in the High Street, and part of the road was closed.

The male driver, who has not been named, suffered minor injuries and was taken to Forth Valley Royal Hospital as a precaution.

Steven Waters, partner in the law firm, told the Advertiser, “We were having a carpet replaced and the carpet fitter was at the back when it happened. He was a very lucky boy, He had just finished working through the front office, locked the front door, put the keys on the table and was leaving by the fire exit when it happened. It could have been as little as 20 seconds between him locking the door to going to the exit. He was very fortunate not to be there and shaken up a bit.” Steven then received the surreal call from the carpet fitter just after 6pm on the Friday to tell him there was a car in the office.

He said, “The phone went and he asked what I was doing that night, I said playing football, and he said no you’re not there’s a car through your front window.” The Advertiser understands that the driver fell unwell at the wheel while coming out of Institution Place, opposite the building.

Despite the extensive damage to the front entrance, the firm is operating as normal from its Hillfoots base and no files were lost in the collision.

The incident has since become the butt of a few jokes in the Hillfoots town.

Steven said, “I heard someone say it’s a fairly radical way for solicitors to attract new business by operating a drive-thru.” The office incident wasn’t the only car crash to involve Watersrule at the weekend.

Less than 24 hours later the firm’s other partner, Stephen Rule, was himself involved in a car accident.

The notorious Dollar Bends, which have witnessed several accidents, on the A91 was closed for an hour from 6pm on Saturday after Stephen’s vehicle was involved in a two-car collision. Both drivers escaped shaken but uninjured.

Regarding the Tillicoultry incident, a spokesman for Police Scotland said, “Police in Tillicoultry responded to the High Street at around 5.50pm on 11 July after a car struck an unoccupied office building. The driver of the car was not seriously injured but was taken to hospital as a precaution “Enquiries into the circumstances of the collision are ongoing.”