HE WAS cleaning the rafters of the coffee shop with a long brush, his back to the road, when he heard a loud crash.

The coffee shop helper, who gave his name only as Mr Chen, turned - and saw a taxi hurtling in from the road.

It knocked down a power box, before ploughing into several tables and chairs less than half a metre from him.

The impact caused the power box to be thrown about a metre away.

The incident happened at the Zheng Sheng coffee shop at the junction of Sims Avenue and Aljunied Road at 2.45am on Thursday.

No one was injured, but Mr Chen, 26, who had the narrowest escape of those around, was badly shaken. 'I was so shocked and scared, I couldn't think,' he said.

He added that after the taxi came to a stop, the dazed driver was still gripping the steering wheel tightly.

Two men ran up to help the driver out.

Shattered glass

One of them was Mr Jeffrey Ng, 34, a cook at Chai Chee Noodle Village stall in the coffee shop. He was preparing ingredients in his stall when he heard the crash.

Mr Ng said: 'When I saw the taxi swerving in, I was worried that it would hit someone.'

He told The New Paper that he and a customer rushed to help the cabby out.

The passenger window was shattered and the front windscreen was cracked. Glass pieces were strewn across the road.

Mr Ng said: 'The cabby told us afterwards that he was trying to avoid a lorry, but ended up colliding with it and lost control.'

The cabby, a bespectacled Chinese man in his 40s, had scratches on his left forearm.

Said Mr Ng: 'I told the driver to take it easy. My customer called the police, and later got someone to tow the taxi away.'

Police said they received a call about the accident at 2.55am and investigations are on.

If the cab had crashed into the coffee shop just 10 minutes earlier, things could have been tragic. Mr Chen said that at least nine people were earlier sitting at the tables which it hit.

They were drinking tea and watching wrestling on the television set in the coffee shop. They left at 2.35am after the wrestling programme ended.

Four of them, who had been sitting in the direct path of the taxi, told The New Paper the following night that they felt lucky to have left just before the accident.

'Very heng (lucky in Hokkien),' said one of them who wished to be known only as Mr Chan. 'Hope can strike 4D now.'

They had been frequenting the coffee shop for the past seven months and always sat at that table in front of the power box.

But now they have moved - to a table shielded by a lamp post.

It was a good thing there hadn't been any soccer matches that night or the coffee shop would have been packed, added Mr Chan.

Han Yongming, newsroom intern

Click on thumbnail to view (Photos: Stomp)

This article was first published in The New Paper.