I sort of drove over her ankle...
Football manager tells how he ran down wife while dropping her off to go to shops
HARRY Redknapp’s wife limped home on crutches yesterday as the football manager told how he had run over her ankle in his Range Rover.
Sandra Redknapp, 69, had trapped her coat in the 4x4 and was dragged along the road moments after he dropped her off at the shops in Bournemouth.
The grandmother fell ‘headfirst’ into a bus lane and suffered ligament damage to her ankle, which required surgery.
After spending the night in hospital, Mrs Redknapp was helped into her £5million home in Poole yesterday in a pink and white dressing gown.
After aiding his wife of 49 years inside the property, a visibly concerned Redknapp, also 69, said: ‘She’s fine, she’s very lucky, it’s made a mess of her ankle. It was just a freak accident.
‘She’d gone behind the car to cross over the road. And as I went to drive off... I sort of drove over her ankle basically.
‘It’s lucky. If the full weight of the car had run over the ankle – God knows what would have happened to her and her foot.’
The accident happened at 11.50am on Wednesday when Redknapp dropped his wife off in a busy shopping area in Westbourne.
Witnesses said they heard Mrs Redknapp screaming in pain, but she was sitting up by the time an ambulance arrived at the scene to take her to hospital along with Redknapp, who abandoned his Range Rover at the scene.
A patch of blood was left on the road after she hit her head on the tarmac, but the wounds to her head were said to be superficial.
Speaking outside their home as they returned from hospital yesterday, the former Tottenham Hotspur manager added: ‘My wife’s fine... She had an operation last night [on Wednesday] that went well so we’re OK.’
The couple’s son, former England football star Jamie Redknapp, a Daily Mail sports columnist, said his mother was doing well. Her only worry was missing going to watch his wife Louise compete on Strictly Come Dancing this weekend.
Jamie Redknapp said: ‘My mum is back home and on the way to a full recovery. The only thing she is upset about is that she might not be fit to go to watch Louise on Strictly this Saturday. She doesn’t like to miss it.’
Traffic was stopped by the police while paramedics tended to Mrs Redknapp in the road.
Rebecca Forrester, from Bournemouth, saw Mrs Redknapp’s coat get caught under the car.
‘People were really concerned and Harry was quite stressed, she was shocked and couldn’t move her legs,’ she told the BBC.
‘It was obvious she was seriously hurt. I didn’t realise until after who it was. It was obviously an accident.’
A local shopkeeper added: ‘I was told he pulled up to let his wife out but before she had completely got out, he went to pull away and she fell over, hitting her head on the floor and breaking her ankle.
‘He moved his car out of the way so the ambulance could get to her and then he got in the ambulance with her but I didn’t see what happened after that.
‘Everyone was talking about it, at first people thought he had hit a pedestrian and then I heard it was actually his wife.’
Another witness said: ‘There was a lot of blood on the tarmac and Harry was beside himself.’
Dorset Police said the incident had not been reported to them and they were not investigating it.
Redknapp, who has also managed Southampton, West Ham and Portsmouth, was himself seriously injured in 1990 in a car crash near Rome that killed his friend Brian Tiler.
He has spoken of his strong relationship with his wife. In one interview he said: ‘I’m not really bothered about friends. I’ve got my family. But most of all, I’ve got Sandra and that’s all that matters.’
‘There was blood on the tarmac’