I’m lucky to be alive - my mum saw the cars and thought I must be dead
AI was very, very lucky. How I didn’t have more injuries, I really don’t know. My car was in pieces, it’s 100 per cent a write-off.
Seb Counsell
MAN has described how he was dragged from the smoking wreckage of his car after it was crushed in a hit and run.
Seb Counsell was lucky to escape without serious injury following the two-car smash, which happened near Bristol on Sunday, September 20.
The 23-year-old was driving from St George towards Staple Hill at about 1.15am, when another car crashed with his as it emerged from the junction of Morley Road and the A4017 Soundwell Road.
Seb, from Kingswood, said: “I’d been hit really hard and it took about 10 minutes or so for me to realise what had happened.
“It was such a shock, I couldn’t stop shaking.
“The radiator in my car just burnt out and exploded so there was smoke and steam everywhere, that’s all I could see, and I was coughing.”
When he came round, he desperately tried to get out of the car but the door was jammed shut.
He said: “I couldn’t get out. “Two or three people passing by pretty much kicked the door open to get me out, and I was dragged out by members of the public.
“I looked into the other vehicle and there was no one there.”
The driver and passengers inside the other vehicle had run away.
Seb said the police helicopter circled to try to track them down, and officers on foot carried out searches nearby.
He suffered bad whiplash and bleeding around his neck where his seat belt had cut in, but did not require hospital treatment.
He said: “I was very, very lucky. How I didn’t have more injuries, I really don’t know.
“My car was in pieces, it’s 100 per cent a write-off.
“My mum got to the scene and saw the cars and thought I was dead.”
Seb, who works nights as a taxi controller and has been off work recovering from shock and his injuries, wants to thank the members of the public who came to his aid. He said: “They were amazing. “There was a nurse who was up feeding her baby who heard the bang, who came running out and looked after me.”
He stressed the importance of wearing a seat belt, and said he would have gone straight through the windscreen without his.
Police confirmed they are investigating the collision, and said the crash happened “shortly after the driver of a silver Mercedes made off from a marked police vehicle in nearby Church Road.”
A spokesperson said: “The driver and passengers of the Mercedes fled the scene. The driver of the Mazda was treated by paramedics at the roadside.
“A man in his teens was arrested in Morley Road, at about 1.30am, on suspicion of dangerous driving. He was later released under investigation pending further enquiries.
“Officers located a second man and a woman nearby.”
Anyone with information is asked to call 101, quoting reference number 5220213681.