Crash victim meets his rescue team
It’s a minor miracle that anyone escaped from this mangled heap of crushed metal.
But Simon Oakley lived to tell the tale after a head-on crash with a lorry in Faversham changed his life forever.
Thought to have fallen asleep at the wheel, the 47-year-old veered across the road and into the truck, leaving his Vauxhall Corsa embedded beneath the front cab.
He was in a coma for six days, spent weeks in a major trauma hospital and was told he would never walk again.
Now, 11 months on, he was reunited with the heroic team who helped save his life.
“I’d just finished working a night shift for a vehicle recovery firm in Ashford and had a parcel to collect in Gillingham,” he said.
“I felt OK so decided not to go home for a sleep but to make the journey.
“The next thing I remember was waking up in hospital.”
Simon was reunited with lorry driver David Jacobs, who was uninjured in the accident, and the emergency crews who rescued him.
Before the meeting, Simon said he was “wracked with guilt” for Mr Jacobs and “forever grateful” to his rescuers.