RWD_cossie_wil

iTrader: (9)

Apologies for the long post, but saw an accident today that was very scary, and just want peoples views on if I did the right thing etc...

So, I left my house in my runabout diesel astra van () near Kidderminster at about 3:15pm to go back to work at RAF Lyneham, near Swindon. My Normal Route is to drive down to the A449, then follow it until J6 M5, then get on the motorway to M5 11A.

I got on the motorway about 3:45pm, weather was drizzly and a bit overcast, so had lights on, keeping good distance from car infront etc. So, i'm in the outside lane doing about 80-85 leptons keeping up with the flow of traffic, overtaking the normal elephant racing trucks, about halfway between J7 & J8. Traffic was moderate, and I was a good 3 secs behind the car infront, as even though it had stopped raining, there was a bit of spray occasionally. As we overtook a few slower cars, I noticed a small blue car in lane one a few hundred yards ahead start to move into the middle lane with no indicators. I immediatly eased off, and got ready to brake as if it carried on moving into lane 3, I would have to slow down for it.. sure enough, the car keeps on coming into lane 3, so I brake, and gave a full-beam flash, as the driver had obviously not bothered to check mirrors or even indicate on a busy motorway! As I was flashing, I realized that the car was not correcting it's course to stay in lane 3, so I stood on the brakes, and sure enough, with no brake lights on, the blue car hit the central reservation crash barrier doing about 70Mph! Cue lots of smoke, sparks, the smell of burning metal like you get when welding and rubble peppering my van, with me cowering behind the steering wheel, still braking hard... Everyone else was braking hard as well, but as the car bounced off the central crash barrier, it still didn't brake.

My immediate thoughts were it was probably and older gent or lady who had lost conciousness due to a heart attack/stroke etc, due to no obvious steering or brake inputs to try and correct the situation.

As the car went back across 3 lanes, narrowly missing cars in lanes 2&1, it still must have been doing 60-70Mph, and carried on across the lanes, over the hard shoulder and mounted the grass embankment, and proceeded to go right to the top, bounced off the fence or whatever was at the top of the embankment still doing probably 50-60Mph, and started to come back down. At the bottom of the verge where it meets the hard shoulder is a strip of rubble, probably a drainage ditch? Well, as the car came back down, it's front offside wheel seemed to dig into the rubble/earth, and the car went up on it's two offside wheels, a good few feet of clear air under the left side of the car!

At this point I had slowed down and had my hazard lights on in the middle lane, and as I watched it unfold, I fully expected the car to roll over. Luckily, the rubble seemed to slow the car down quickly, and as it's speed scubbed off, it dropped back onto all four wheels, and came to a halt half on the verge and half on the hard shoulder.

I'm very lucky to be fairly well first aid & accident/incident trained in my job (RAF engineer),so I pulled in behind the car (turned out to be an 04' plated City Rover ) , ran over with my phone ready to call 999, and immediatly check how the occupants were. As I got to the drivers door, there was a middle aged black lady sat there looking shocked, and a young child around 4-5 i think who I assumed was her daughter in the back seat screaming. Amazingly, the engine was still running, so I opened the drivers door, turned the ignition off and pulled the keys out whilst asking the driver her name and if she was ok.

At first she didn't even look at me, and I was wondering if she had had a seizure/stroke etc, or that she didn't understand English etc, so I asked her again, and she sort of looked at me with wide eyes, then slowly got out of the car and grabbed her daughter out of the back, as you would expect, and just stood on the hard shoulder looking dumbstruck. I managed to get her name, and asked if she was ok, to which she said yes. I asked a number of times if she wanted an ambulance, but she said no, and appeared to be fine along with her daughter, bar obvious signs of shock.

I managed to convince her to get onto the verge away from the car, and asked if she had anyone to call for help, or was she in the AA/ RAC etc. She said she would call her husband, but had no breakdown cover etc. I was still thinking what to do regarding calling the police etc, bearing in mind so far the incident had just happened, no one else was involved and there were no obvious injurys.

She then suggested that she should just drive the car to the services 3/4 of a mile or so down the road, to which I replied you can't do that, you have just crashed, you don't know if the car is safe to drive etc, it might be best to wait for help? She said again she wasn't in the AA/RAC, and her husband would take some time to arrive, and she just wanted to get to the services...

In the heat of the moment, I looked at the car, and bar lots of superficial panel damage, it seemed to be ok, as the engine was still running before I turned it off, and the wheels all seemed to be pointing straight etc.. Now, during this conversation, she had seemed to perk up quite a bit, and was just upset and a bit shaken from the whole episode, and seemed ok and insisted she was ok to drive a short distance. It was very hard trying to get anything else out of her, as she seemed to have quite a limited grasp of English.

As it was quite busy, and not brilliant conditions, it seemed safer to get mother and daughter away from the hard shoulder, as she was getting very agitated and just wanted to get away from the motorway, so I grudgingly agreed to let her have the keys back, but told her to drive very slowly down the hard shoulder with her hazards on, and stop if ANYTHING felt wrong at all, with me following her to make sure she was ok.

At that moment in time, all things considered, ie that she was physically ok as far as I could tell, she didn't want an ambulance, calling the police seemed pointless, and the car looked in amazingly reasonable shape, I followed her down the hard shoulder to J8 services. When we got there, she thanked me for stopping and helping, and assured me she would call her husband for help, and didn't need any more assitance.

Now, going back to the concerns I had about illness/medical conditions, it was very obvious and I realized that the woman had just fallen asleep at the wheel, and the crash was a very rude awakening!


Looking back on it tonight, I am not sure letting her drive to the services was a great idea, but on the other hand I could see little benefit to sitting on the hard shoulder in poor conditions where there was an option to remove them to the safty of the services?

The other thing that really annoyed me was at least 10-15 cars and trucks must have seen the accident happen, yet ONLY I stopped, which I think is disgraceful really, especially considering the way it happened.

But, on the upside, it seems the woman and her child were AMAZINGLY lucky, not only to escape without a scratch, but also with a car that seemed largly ok bar scrapes and dents etc??

What else could I have/should I have done? Very eye opening on how quickly things can go wrong, and that having an escape plan should a crash or somthing unusual happens is vital, and should be hammered home to drivers like it is when you do your bike licence!

I'm open for criticism and discussion, as every day is a school day!

JayCC

I probably would have called the police, but I wouldn't have said you did anything wrong.. You removed the hazard to a safer place. Better than leaving 2 people on the hard shoulder in less than perfect conditions.

Rick Astley

Technically she left the scene of an accident.

We can only second guess what was the safest thing to do, for all we know you could have told her to drive slowly to the services then on her way she could have been hit from behind by a HGV etc.

If it was me I would have left her where she was albeit way up the embankment and informed the police/highways as she has undoubtedly damaged alot of road furniture.

But I'm in the priviledged position of being able to think, I realise it's not always possible to calmly think things through when you are exposed to such things.

orionmojo

iTrader: (1)

Very lucky mate.

i cant really get into it (as i'm off to work now) but i've been the first to arrive at a crash but the fella was in a bad way in a ditch, at night in the wet and it was truly horrible.
I still cant remember all the deatils, its all a blur and you just dont think properly. instinct takes over and thats not always best but you seem to have made a calculated decision and the woman was in sound enough mind to talk, walk and drive so you couldn't really have stopped her doing what she wanted anyway.
Fair play for stopping though, same as when i stopped, you have a steaming pile of twisted metal at the side of the road, me pulled up just after and the amount of people that just drive past slowly to take a look is ridiculous.

Joe.

roofer ron

Should of phoned police... what are the chances she had no license insurance etc etc .

tabetha

Defo call plod, takes away all the responsibility from your shoulders if the car was stolen, she was illegal, on drugs or whatever, barrier would need attending to anyway.
No way would I have given her her keys back, after just having had a obvious bang on the head, and /or lost conciousness, if she drove on and had a bad accident with a fatality you could have prevented this, you had your being nice head on instead of being safe imo, not a criticism just observation.
Ace of you to stop though, too many shit heads about don't give a shit so long as they(themselves) are ok top respect for that.
I've been first on scene where a girl was thrown across the road from the impact of being hit by a car some 40 feet or so, I did my bit after screaming at the other people who were with her that were trying to sit her up, even though she was unconcious, I effectively held her down across shoulder blades(she was face down) as gently as possible for her own good despite her screaming(fkin loud as well deafened me).
There's now a 16/17 year old girl still walking despite her injuries leading a normal life.
tabetha

CossieRich

iTrader: (1)

Will,

You did what you thought was right at the time. Really should have called the police mate but never mind, you were the only one that stopped and offered any sort of assistance. Well done.

fish99

Fair play for stopping mate.. , not many like you about, as you have pointed out.

Cant knock you for what you did as you did it in the heat of the moment, its easy to say well you should have done this, done that after the incident when your sitting at home ( not that anyone is doing that ). But its like everything we do under pressure... after the incident we all say well we could have done that better, done this instead... thats why there are always debriefs at the end of every major incident.

Personally I wouldnt have let her drive and would have called plod. She might have said she was ok, but obviously she would have been in shock or may have been suffering internal injuries. In light of that it would have been an ambulance job all day long. Let the proffesionals give an assessment of their health.

Does sound a bit sus why she wanted to get away from the scene a bit sharpish.. If my child was involved in an accident I would have wanted them checked asap.

Its more than like that plod would have attended anyway as those motorways are virtually covered with CCTV anyway... I would be expecting a call from them.

Well done for what you did anyway mate... you made the call at the time and im definately not critisizing

FletchCossie

iTrader: (4)

Who cares what anyone else says or thinks mate, you did what you thought was right at the time. None of us were there to say we would of done things differently. Well done mate

stevieturbo

You didnt phone the police ? are you mad ?

Who's to say she even has a license etc ? She could have killed people. If she has a license like that, then she deserves to have it removed !

DaveEscos

should have called the police!

I bet no licence.... no insurance... no passport ( )

stevieturbo

And no speak english when they realise they are in shit.

Rsmat

iTrader: (2)

ive exsperianced the same thing on route to north wales last year..Old bloke had a stroke went cross all three lanes hit central reservation then back across all three lanes again and came to a rest at the top of the enbankment...

and no one helped i was the only 1 to pulls keys out the overly revving engine and ring the police and ambulance.

Will you did the right thing mate..imo.

Altratz

Police everytime mate for a number of reasons.

1. you have no idea on circumstances behind the womens history i.e license to drive, drunk so on

2.as stated she went into the central barrier which is now damaged and will need repairing as its safety is compromised so would require an insurance claim.

3. While i know you have a degree of first aid training it is widely agreed that in my profession that until someone is in definitive care i.e hospital you cannot diagnose every injury and with such a high speed impact internal bleeding c pine injuries and alike are not uncommon.

while i understand the predicament police ambulance and fire services should have all been called but at least you know for the next time you run someone off the road!!!!!

DaveEscos

Maybe she was a drugs mule.. loaded up with bags of coke in her stomach. Perhaps one split!

stu21t

Well done for doin something,
As said tho I would defo have called the old bill.

A few years ago I saw something almost the same,
I was in my convertible R5 and a bit in front of me saw a car drift violently from lane 1-3 into the barrier then spin across the motorway and down a bank.
The only people to stop were me, another R5 (i didnt know them, we were on our way home from a show) owner and an off duty nurse.
I put the shaken but uninjured female passenger in my 5 while the nurse checked her over till the ambulance turned up.

It was a tyre blow out that caused it.

Old bill came took statements and cleaned the road up.


As you say it's very easy to quickly go from a normal drive home to a rather large accident. And how more people don't stop to check they are ok is beyond me.

St3V3_C

I would have insisting on calling an ambulance, just to 'check her out'. They would then have called plod and you still seem like the nice guy.

s1cab

iTrader: (1)

fair play for stopping ! sounds like you done everything i would have and alot more Just feel bad for the child more than anything how can people drive when they get that tired knowing their child is in the car ...

Dan_RS500

Your question "just want peoples views on if I did the right thing etc" can not be answered by any one who was not there. You were in a decision making position and used your best judgement based on what you knew, what you saw, what insticts you had etc.

One of the best pieces of advice I have ever been given: The best decision you can make is the right one, the second best decision you can make is the wrong one and the worst thing you can do is nothing at all.

As you said your self, every day is a school day so dont dwell on it, take what you can from it and move on.

Props for stopping and actually doing some thing.