A Brighton resident narrowly avoided certain death in a freak automobile collision with heavy construction equipment while turning onto Quincy Street in front of Gund Hall yesterday.

An arm of the construction equipment smashed through the front window of Anthony Bombaci's 1983 Renault Alliance, shattering the windshield glass and lodging itself inside the car body.

Bombaci ducked onto the passenger seat a moment before the collision.

"I was coming up Kirkland Street and I took a left," Bombaci said. "As I took a left...a front loader backed up out of nowhere...as soon as I saw the thing there I ducked.

"It's a good thing I didn't have a safety belt on," he added. "Otherwise, I would have been killed."

The driver of the construction vehicle, which was leased by the California-based company Barker's Leasing, was unavailable for comment.

Bombaci received only a few minor facial cuts from the accident.

"It was my lucky day," he said.

About 15 minutes passed before the rescue workers could break the roof of the car to get him out, according to Captain Michael Morrissey of the Cambridge Fire Department.

Morrissey said rescue workers "flapped" the roof off the car, cutting four of the six posts and bendingthe roof back.

"I never thought anything like that wouldhappen to me," Bombaci said. "It was pretty scary.There was glass in my shoes, in my ear, and on myshirt."

Morrissey said ambulance workers immobilizedBombaci "as a matter of routine" and took him toMount Auburn Hospital for examination.

"We were in and out of there in about 20minutes," said Morrissey, adding that Bombaci was"conscious, alert and oriented" when he wasremoved from the car