Gone with the wind, townie style: Allan Hawco's car halts woman's slide across busy street

A woman who was shopping during this weekend's wind storm in St. John's had a close call when she was blown off her feet and into the vehicle of Newfoundland actor Allan Hawco.

It sounds funny when you tell people that the wind actually blew you away, but it's really, really scary.- Sarah Murphy

Sarah Murphy had just leftWinners in Stavanger Drive with her mom, sister and young daughter when hurricane-force windssuddenly picked up.

"I came out, and the wind blew me a little bit, and I looked at mom and laughed because I had never been blown off my feet or anything," she told the St. John's Morning Show.

"Two seconds later, I didn't even realize that the wind was blowing me across the parking lot. I couldn't stop, it was really scary."

Luckily for Murphy, her daughter was not in her arms at the time and was instead being carried by her sister.

A run-in with Jake Doyle

With her feet skidding along the ground and out into the street, Murphy worried she would hit an oncomingSUV, so turned her body to at least avoid colliding with it front-on.

That's when she hit another car instead, which actually stopped her from moving any further into ongoing traffic.

"I saw this woman in a red coat running towards me in the middle of ongoing traffic," said Hawco, star of the hit CBCshow Republic of Doyle,who was just starting to pull out of the same parking lot.

"I just managed to speed up in enough time that I missed her, but she came up solid on the back of my vehicle. I thought at first she was chasing somethinglike a dog or something."

Murphy bounced off Hawco's vehicle and slammed down onthe pavement. That's when he got out and asked her what she was running from.

"I didn't realize it was him at first, I just knew it was a man," she said. "Soon as he came over to me he asked me what I was running from, and I just told him the wind blew me over and I couldn't stop."

Could have been worse

After gathering herself, Murphy headed home. It wasn't until she got her coat off and saw the blood all over her armthat she realized how badly she was hurtnot so much from hitting Hawco'scar, but from the impact of her body falling on the parking lot.

Murphy says she may be hurt, but is thankful that her daughter wasn't in her arms when the wind picked her up, she's also grateful that Hawco's vehicle just happened to be there to stop her from going any further.

"I don't even want to think about what could have happened," she said.

"It sounds funny when you tell people that the wind actually blew you away, but it's really, really scary."