'Hi-viz knight in shining armour' came to rescue after Storm Bram brought down lamppost

A Livingston councillor has hailed a local hero on the scene minutes after a tree brought down a lamp standard at the height of last week’s Storm Bram.

Alison Adamson was there when the tree came down bringing the still-lit street light with it across the busy bus route on Deans Road North in Livingston as people struggled home during Wednesday night’s storm.

Arriving at the site and finding the road blocked Sandy Hamilton, who works for Bathgate-based MD Fencing Contractors, pulled a chainsaw out of his work van and started cutting the tree apart.

Councillor Adamson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “I want to say a huge thank you to big-hearted Sandy Hamilton. A knight in hi-viz shining armour”

Councillor Adamson added: “He single-handedly started cutting away the tree I helped remove branches from the road but cars were still travelling at speed towards the obstruction. Fearing the worst I called the police to help alert motorists”

Buses had to be diverted from the area as both lanes of the road were blocked.

The councillor added: “Once the police arrived, we all moved the cut branches from the carriageway exposing the street light which stayed lit the whole time! I managed to get hold of the WLC emergency lighting engineer who was able to disconnect the lamp post and make it safe.

“Once the crippled light was removed from the road, both lanes were again clear for traffic. I want to thank the police for attending so quickly and helping us remove the branches, the lighting engineer but especially our knight in hi-viz shining armour, Sandy Hamilton, a local man, for cutting away at the tree and getting it removed from the road. The whole operation took us just under two hours”

Confessing to feeling “aching the next day” after hauling branches off the road, Councillor Adamson said the real heroes were Sandy and the two police officers, along with the council engineer who made the street light safe.

“It was an invigorating experience, but I wouldn’t want to do it again,” she said.

A West Lothian Council spokesperson said: “We were notified by Police Scotland that a lighting column had been brought down by a tree on Deans North Road in the evening of Tuesday 9 December.

“Our Customer Service Team contacted the duty standby officer, who arranged for a member of the Street Lighting Team to attend out-of-hours to make the lighting column safe as a priority.

“The obstruction was then removed from the road to allow traffic to move freely again, with the incident resolved within 90 minutes from when we were first notified.”