A BLANDFORD man has told of his lucky escape when an Army tank squashed his car as he was driving to work.

As reported in yesterday's Daily Echo, Paul Taylor, 42, watched in horror as the 20-tonne machine driven by a trainee soldier veered out of control after one of the operating controls jammed.

He sat terrified as the tank mounted the bonnet of his Citroen BX, then his windscreen crumpled under the weight of one of the tracks, quickly followed by the driver's door.

He managed to dive out of the passenger door as the green 432 Army personnel carrier ground to a halt on the car's roof.

The incident happened as Paul was travelling north along the C13 road in Melbury Abbas, near Shaftesbury.

Six soldiers from the 3rd Battalion Yorkshire regiment undergoing training on board the tank were going south.

Miraculously, Paul escaped being crushed by squeezing out of the passenger door, and suffered just a scratch to the back of his right hand.

The tank driver was taken to hospital suffering from shock.

Paul said the whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion.

He said: "I was following a lorry through the village when this tank appeared from around the corner.

"The tank and lorry moved past each other but as it began to approach me it seemed to veer in my direction.

"I thought Oh no, it's going to hit me'.

"It started squashing my car bit by bit, very slowly, it felt like it was in slow motion.

"I sat there thinking does it have any brakes? Do they know I'm here?'."

When he got out, he said he couldn't believe his eyes.

"The whole front of my car was flat with a tank on top of it."

Paul said the incident has now been passed to the insurance companies but there was no way the car could be repaired.

A spokesman for the 43 Wessex Division, at Warminster, Wilts, where the tank is based, said one of the tank's controls had stuck. It was now being inspected to ensure it didn't happen again.

PC Kevin Jones, of Blandford traffic police, said the tank driver was aged in his early 20s.

He said: "It is amazing the driver walked free from the car."