A man who went on a camping trip with his family in Cork has opened up about the "frightening" incident in which his tent was thrust into the air by a "freak wind".
Joe O'Connor was off camping with his wife and daughter in Bantry over the weekend, however, on Saturday things took a turn for the worse after a freak wind lifted the tent and dragged the three of them into the side of a parked car.
As well as thrashing the tent into the side of the car, the wind also destroyed a caravan in the area they were camping. Joe has since been brought to Portlaoise General Hospital to be treated for injuries to his knee and head.
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Speaking to the Neil Prendeville show on Cork's RedFM this morning, Joe explained that he was awake when they were lifted by the adverse weather conditions, that just came "out of nowhere", despite the tent being well secured.
He told Neil: "It kind of came out of nowhere. It was like a train hit into tents. We knew the forecast was for rain. Rain hitting the tent is loud, but this was deafening. I couldn't sleep so I was awake and next of all the tent just took."
The tent, Joe explained, cost around €2,000 and was well-secured when they were lifted off the ground at around 2am on Sunday morning.
He continued: "It’s a big tent and it's well secured. It's not like string. It's full straps to hold it to the ground. It was pegged.
"I would say there were about 30 pegs holding this tent down. So yeah, it's not something that will be lifted very easily in a bit of wind. And we've lots in it, we have a lot of equipment, we have hobs. We've spoiled ourselves with TVs with double beds.
"At 2am the beams of the tents started to dip and within two seconds, the whole side of the tent was on top of us. We were being dragged across the pitch. Not knowing where you're at.
"You're being pulled along the ground. We don't know if we were lifted, but the whole tent separated itself from top and bottom and the bedroom was all ripped from top to bottom.
"As I said, we were dragged and we smashed into a car. Now, I think I was kind of out a little bit so I hit the car and smashed my head off the mirror."
He also explained that one of the most frightening things was figuring out how he could get his daughter and wife from the tent after he emerged.
Joe said: "My wife and daughter were at the back. When I got out, I was getting lashed on. The tent had kind of wrapped around the car. So my daughter was kind of wrapped around the back of this car. I was at the front. And she was caught in the corner.
"That was the most frightening part of it, is to think how am I going to get these out because you have no sense of where you were or where the next door is."
Thankfully, while his family are sore, no-one sustained any major bangs or knocks, although Joe is heading to Portlaoise Hospital today to have some of his injuries looked at.
