Storm Henk: Hero rescuer dangled off bridge and told mum to hand her child

As Liam Stych described the daring rescue, it emerged the horrific weather had claimed the life of a motorist whose car was crushed by a falling tree.

Henk, the eighth storm to be named in just three months, brought torrential rain and winds gusting up to 94mph on Tuesday.

Brave Liam was walking with his pregnant partner, Tia Draper, when he realised the trapped mum and her three-year-old daughter were inside a half-submerged Fiat Punto pinned against a bridge in Birmingham.

The father of two said: “We were walking over a bridge and I heard a woman screaming from inside a car.

“She was shouting, ‘Help me, help me! Please save my baby! She’s in the back.’

“The front of her car was pointing down into the water, so I dangled off the bridge but was careful not to put any more weight on the car in case it sank.

“I told the woman to remain calm and unwind her window and hand me her child.

“I said to her, ‘Give me the baby’s hand, I’ll get her out’.”

But the woman could not wind down her window far enough so Liam smashed the window of the car to reach her little girl.

He said: “I took the baby and literally hurled her behind me and into the lap of Tia, who was on the bridge.”

After wading in to help the mum to safety, Liam even had the presence of mind to lash the Punto to railings with ratchet straps from his van to stop it being washed away by the fast-flowing water. The rescue, filmed by Tia, was described by police as “heroic”.

The motorist who died in the storm was crushed to death when his vehicle and another car were hit by a falling tree.

Two air ambulance crews attended the freak accident. But the man, in his 50s, was pronounced dead at the scene on the A433 Tetbury Road, near Cirencester, Glos.

As the vehicles and the tree were removed yesterday morning, a forensic collision investigation was under way. Gloucestershire Police said: “A man died after a tree fell on the car he was driving. Emergency services, including an air ambulance, attended.

“Despite the efforts of those at the scene a man aged in his 50s and from the Bath area died. His next of kin and the coroner have been informed.”

Another falling tree injured a woman in Orpington, south-east London, and many more damaged properties and blocked roads across the country.

The highest 94mph wind speeds were recorded at the Needles on the Isle of Wight, but they also reached 81mph in Exeter and 77mph in Newquay, Cornwall.

On the London Eye in the capital, a family were left stranded and terrified after a hatch on the roof of a pod was ripped off and left dangling by metal wires.

David Nock and 11 relatives, including five children, were 400ft up in a pod.

Mr Nock, 43, from Bournemouth, said: “The noise was quite deafening, it was a bit of a harrowing experience. The kids all found it terrifying.”

The tourist attraction was later closed.

National Highways was forced to shut the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge over the Dartford Crossing due to “excessively strong winds”.

In Sutton, South London, scaffolding was hauled from its fixings and hurled to the ground close to passers-by.

And in Tiverton, Devon, the remains of the turret at Bickleigh Castle, which has stood for 900 years, collapsed.

The rain also wreaked havoc across the country. There were 400 flood warnings in place and commuters faced wall-to-wall cancellations on more than 20 different railway lines due to the deluge.

In Northamptonshire 1,000 people had to be evacuated from houseboats and caravans at Billing Aquadrome, on the banks of the River Nene.

Rescuers used dinghies to transport some to safety after the pathway to dry land was blocked by rising water.

Firefighters in Warwickshire also used an inflatable to rescue people stranded in a car stuck in floodwater. In Worcestershire, a line of vehicles were all but submerged on the A443 near Tenbury, Worcs.

And many motorways were left impassable, with severe delays on large parts of the M25 around London.

The Great River Ouse burst its banks and flooded land around the town of St Ives in Cambridgeshire.

And several homes were left sodden and swimming in water in Loughborough, Leics.

Kew Gardens in South West London closed its doors while its sister venue, the botanic garden Wakehurst Place, in West Sussex, was shut as a precaution.

It also emerged yesterday raw sewage had spilled from a flooded treatment works in Surrey after Storm Henk caused the River Mole to burst its banks.

Campaigners said the foul pollution, from Thames Water’s unmanned Horley treatment works near Gatwick Airport, had spread out over “public space”.

Simon Collins, of monitoring group River Mole River Watch, said it happens whenever the river rises to about eight feet.

He said: “It pours out of the sewage works across a public footpath down a ditch.

“It really is quite a torrent when it gets going and it ends up crossing what is dog-walking territory, open public space.”

Thames Water apologised and said it has installed a temporary pump to clear the water while it upgrades the treatment plant.

Heavy rain from Henk also caused most of the water company’s storm overflows to discharge sewage into rivers and ground water across southern England.

It is likely that other firms are also discharging more than usual, but only Thames Water published a live interactive map of its monitors on rivers.

The storm also left 100,000 homes temporarily without power.

And last night around 40,000 properties, most in the South West, had still not been reconnected.

But the Met Office warned the weather misery is set to continue, with flood warnings still in place and heavy showers bringing the risk of hail and thunder to the South for the rest of the week.

It has issued a yellow national severe weather warning until the early hours of tomorrow.

Chief Meteorologist Matthew Lehnert said: “The track of the heaviest rain remains uncertain. But there is a chance of 20 to 30mm falling in a six to nine-hour period for a portion of the warning area, with a few places seeing as much as 40 to 50mm.

“Much of this rain is falling on already wet ground and therefore impacts are more likely.

“Meanwhile, a stalled weather front will continue to bring rain and showers across the North East.”

The UK Health Security Agency has also issued a cold weather alert from Saturday until Tuesday, when it warns below-average temperatures could turn the saturated ground into treacherous ice.