A sudden tidal surge almost swept a parked car on a West Country beach out to sea earlier this week. The car, a black Audi, had been parked on the sands at Polzeath, on the coast of North Cornwall on Thursday evening, (November 24) and before long found itself surrounded by water.
A local beach artist, Bill Bartlett, managed to shoot some footage of the car, in which we see the vehicle being thrown about by a tempestuous sea: it spins around and is visibly tossed to and fro. Most onlookers had assumed that was the end of the car's life, but once the surge had calmed down it was seen being driven off, seemingly without any issues, reported sister publication Cornwall Live.
Mr Bartlett, from New Polzeath, near Wadebridge, and who also runs North Cornwall Coast Path Walks, said the people in the car were "very lucky", because ten minutes later another even bigger surge came in which he said would really have taken their car out to sea or caused injuries and damage.
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He said: "It's a great advert for German engineering considering the amount of sea water that went into the engine yet they managed to drive off just like that."
The incident happened around 6pm on Thursday, (November 24) just as the dark winter skies were coming in. Mr Bartlett said that over the years he has witnessed a few incidents where cars have had a free wash when left on the beach car park as the tide rolled in.
"Everyone who lives around here knows that it was going to be a very high tide. There must have been about 20 cars on the car park," said Mr Bartlett, who first posted the video to his TikTok account - using the song Car Wash by Rose Royce as the soundtrack - before then posting it on his Facebook page.
"Right at the front there was this couple who had come down for the weekend. If they had not come back to their car on time they would have been washed away. We don't know who it was. Everyone in the village is trying to find out who these people where, but many of us suspect it was someone without the local knowledge."
According to Mr Bartlett, there was a man with a Land Rover ready to drive in to tow the people off the beach had they been stuck following the tidal surge, but his help was not needed in the end as the car was able to drive off wet but unscathed.
"There was this other surge that came 10 minutes later," Mr Bartlett added.
"They were lucky to be able to get off the beach at all when they did because it was even bigger than what caught them out. I have seen a lot of people get caught out by tides at this car park over the years. It is a car park but it is also on the beach. But no-one reads the signs."
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