Terrifying footage shows Carl Drennan, 36, kneeling a few inches away from the 1.5in-thick glass when it tips out of its frame and towards him in front of his horrified customer
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Pond guru’s installation tutorial video almost goes horrifyingly wrong
A pond guru’s tutorial video on how to perform installations safely almost went horrifyingly wrong when a 28-stone glass panel “nearly beheaded him like in a scene from The Omen.”
Carl Drennan, 36, was recording himself fitting a viewing window for a customer in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, on October when “complacency almost killed him.” Terrifying footage shows the man kneeling a few inches away from the 1.5in-thick glass when it tips out of its frame and towards him.
Despite his customer shouting “look out”, the 28-stone weight crashes into his face and thrusts him backwards until it slams down onto his thigh and twisted leg. Thankfully, Carl was able to push the £1,500 glass off himself before his customer, who was chatting to him when it fell, grabbed it and checked that he was okay.
He escaped with just a swollen ankle and a cut nose – which he was pleased wasn’t broken because he has already had two nose jobs to fix a previous break. The “lucky” business owner, who has been running CWD Pond for five years, has admitted his mistake was forgetting to re-add some of the panel’s clamps after applying sealant. His firm teaches people to install their own ponds and sells the materials to do it, so this clip was planned to exemplify how to fit glass panels correctly and safely.
Carl has since claimed he was “one foot away from being beheaded like a scene from The Omen” – a notoriously grisly moment in which a glass pane falls from a truck and decapitates one of the horror film’s characters. He posted the video to TikTok on November 1, where it has been viewed by more than 200,000 shocked users.
The pond worker, from Sandbach, Cheshire, said: “I could have been decapitated like a scene from the Omen. I’ve probably done it hundreds if not a thousand times so you just don’t respect the danger at times. It kind of humbled me because I’ve got a kid now and if I stood a foot further back or lower, it could have come down on my neck and killed me easily.
“When I pushed the bottom of the glass in, the top came out and that caused it to fall so before I knew it I was on the floor. The glass is worth £1,500 so my first thought was if I’d smashed it I wasn’t in pain because I was in shock I could feel blood dripping down my nose pretty much straight away then the customer was looking at me in horror.
“I’ve broken my nose before and had two nose jobs to fix it so I was worried it had gone all wonky again. Not putting the clamps back on was the mistake and that was either caused by complacency or talking to the customer.
“I couldn’t bring myself to watch it on the way home but when I did I felt so lucky because it could have been a lot worse. I never thought to delete the video because it’s good to show people it is a dangerous job, put the clamps back on and have a few more people than you need to help you.
“I’ve never heard of this happening before and I’m glad it wasn’t somebody who works for me. It’s my mistake. Lots of people have said ‘why did you do that?’ and I’ve thought that myself so I can’t blame them.”
Carl insists he plans to do a full risk assessment of the incident to avoid the same thing happening again. The dad-of-one says he waited for ten minutes to let the shock die down and at the end of the day a colleague drove home because his right ankle had swollen too much.
He claims he did a first aid course the day before so decided he didn’t need to seek medical attention after the incident. The business owner says he is glad the customer wasn’t quicker to help as he could have fallen on top of the glass and made things worse.
He captioned his TikTok ‘complacency kills’ and it’s been liked more than 680 times. The post said: “180kg window being stopped by my face. Complacency kills. Here’s what happens when you forget a simple thing like replacing clamps on the 39mm thick glass.
“Pushing the bottom of the glass caused it to pop out at the top, then crash into my head. I’m glad it wasn’t somebody else. It was a close call that could easily have been avoided and preventing this will be a main point in any window installation videos in future. Luckily it’s more embarrassing than injury but a few feet further back and it could have been a different story.”
One user commented: “If there is anything stronger than that glass it’s this fellas bread basket took it like a champ.” Another said: “Wow, I bet that hurt.” Chris replied: “Yeah just a bit. I won’t be doing that again!” A third added: “At least it never smashed! Landed on something soft.”
