The husband of a woman who died after being crushed by a tree during Storm Eunice has told how her final words to him were “my love”.
Juliana Da Silva Queiroz Murilo, 37, was in the passenger seat of the silver Honda being driven by her cab driver husband Carlos when the tree fell on the car in Highgate, north London.
Mr Murilo, 39, who had just collected his wife from work as a house cleaner, told the Standard: “I always picked her up and especially with the high winds I could not let her come home alone.
“We were not far from home when there was a loud noise. She looked at me and said ‘my love’ three times. As she said it the tree hit and crushed her.
“Those were her last words. I was trapped in the wreckage next to her and also injured. I knew she had gone... I was conscious throughout. It was like a living nightmare.”
The couple were cut from the car and taken to hospital after the smash in Muswell Hill Road at 4pm on Friday. Mr Murilo was in an ambulance when he was told that his wife had died.
Speaking from their family home in north London, he said: “The emergency services cut me out of the car and took me to an ambulance. I asked about Juliana and they told me what I already knew, that she had died. In many ways I died as well, I don’t think I can recover from this. I can’t stop replaying the scene in my head.”
The couple, who had moved to London from their native Brazil, had been married for 15 years. Mrs Murilo was training to be a teacher.
Mr Murilo added: “I wouldn’t want another family to go through what we have. If there’s anything that can be learned from this about the safety of trees near roads then that must happen.”
Mrs Murilo was one of four people killed in the carnage caused by Storm Eunice, which saw record-breaking gales of 122mph. It was one of three storms in a week which battered the country, with just under 30,000 homes still without power as of yesterday afternoon.
Parts of the West Midlands and North have been urged to be prepared for significant flooding until Wednesday. There are two rare “severe” warnings along the River Severn at Ironbridge in Shropshire and Bewdley in Worcestershire.
Trains in South Yorkshire are disrupted by flooding at Rotherham and Transport for Wales said no services could run between Shrewsbury and Birmingham or Cardiff and Aberystwyth due to flooding on the line.
