Fatal

A woman has died following a two vehicle collision on the A40 near Little Barrington earlier today, Saturday 18 February.

Emergency services were called to a collision, which involved a Honda Jazz and a Skoda Fabia, at around 11.50am.

The 69-year-old woman was pronounced dead at the scene. Her next of kin have been informed.

Three other people have been taken to hospital with serious injuries and remain in serious conditions. Gloucestershire Police Statement - 18 February 2023

It’s never good to come across a fatal accident, but unfortunately it does occasionally happen in this job.

That Saturday was, until then, a completely normal day. I’d loaded up in Derbyshire in the morning, then brought the loaded trailer down to our yard in Witney, Oxfordshire. I’d dumped it there for someone else to unload on Monday morning, hooked-up an empty trailer, and then set-off westwards on the A40, towards my next collection in South Wales.

That part of the A40 runs through The Cotswolds which is an “Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty”. Yep, that’s an official designation in the UK, one step down from a national park. Clarkson’s Farm is in The Cotswolds, not far from where we are talking about.

It’s a rural area, but you can’t get away from the fact it’s in southern England, and it can still feel crowded. Especially on a sunny Saturday, even in February. People come out to explore the pretty towns, do some shopping, visit friends, or just to enjoy the countryside. So the weekend roads can be busier than on a weekday, and full of the those unfortunate “weekend drivers”.

There was a bit of a queue approaching the roundabout at Burford, but after that the road was clear ahead as I entered the national speed limit section (60mph for cars on that kind of road). I set my cruise for 50, the HGV limit, and started to think about my most important task of the day, i.e. where I was going to stop for lunch.

The first signs of trouble was while I was coming round a gentle left hand bend. I saw a heavy application of brake lights, perhaps through the trees at first, and instinctively flicked off the cruise. A second or so later I see that indeed a car is stopped in the road, about 300 metres ahead. And another, off the road, damaged, steam or smoke coming from the front. An accident. It’s just happened. I whack the hazard lights [four ways] on to warn those behind me, and start to gently bring myself and the traffic behind to a halt. As I get closer I see another car, a black Skoda, off the road on the other side, clearly damaged as well. A head on collision? Oh, this is not good, this is really not good. People are out of their cars now, I see someone run to the first car, open the rear door and a pull woman out. No!! Don’t do that, I say to myself. I scan the scene; is someone calling the emergency services, do I need to make the call? I can see a guy out of this car, on the phone. OK, so that’s being done. I’m just coming to halt, then quickly I’m out of the cab. “Don’t move people!” I shout. As I move towards the first car, I check over my shoulder that no mad driver is trying to over-take the queue behind me. The guy who ran over to the Honda is holding the woman’s hand, telling her she is going to be OK. But she is totally limp, her eyes wide-open, unblinking, her face unmoving, not breathing, not a single sign of life. She’s almost certainly dead. A kind of numbness comes over me, I suddenly feel like I’m trying to move through setting concrete. I’m was an army team medic, but the lowest possible level of medic, it was many years ago, and I’ve never been called to put my limited training into practice. But I must do something, I can’t let the shock make me freeze.

It’s a cliché to say the training kicks in, but suppose that’s what happened. I must’ve run through a subconscious checklist in my head. Is traffic bearing down on the scene? No, vehicles are now backed-up in both directions. Is someone talking to the emergency services? Yes, the guy I saw before is still on the phone. “Do you know exactly where you are?” I call across to him. Yes, he does he says. OK, so the emergency services hopefully won’t be confused as to where to go. What’s next? Check for risks, then triage. There was steam or smoke coming from the front of the Honda, so possible fire risk. The driver is trapped, but fully conscious. “Are you ok?” I ask.

“Yes, if can get out I’ll be fine”.

“No, you stay exactly where you are!”

The problem would be that if something had impaled his leg, it might be stemming bleeding. Him trying to move, or someone moving him, could reveal a femoral artery bleed, and then he’d be in real trouble. Not that he can get out anyway, his car is wrapped around his lower half. I look into his footwell, and can’t see his legs at all, it’s just a mess of twisted metal and broken plastic. I look to check to see if the ignition is off, but I can’t see any sign of the ignition barrel in the mess. But no great amount of blood, and no blood coming from below the door as well. I look in the back seat. A lot of mess, stuff seems to have flown forward from the luggage area, but no more people. I move around to the front of the car, and peer into the now partially exposed engine bay. No flames, no smoke, no smell of burning, no dripping petrol. OK, that’s good. The front seat passenger, a young woman, is out of the car, and appears to be physically unharmed. Another person is with her already.

By this stage I’m by no means alone in stepping forward, there are what seems to be a dozen or so people trying to help now. The bystander effect is a real thing, but I believe the British are remarkably resistant to it in such circumstances. But the problem can then become one of duplicating efforts, and people simply just doing the wrong things. And whilst it’s good that someone takes charge, I don’t want to be shouting instructions at people when there’s someone better qualified to do so.

I move over to the second car. A couple of women are tending to the elderly female driver already. She’s also trapped. They’re holding her head still. Good. I look through the smashed back window. No other people, no children in the footwell or anything like that (it happens…). I go around to the front. Again, no signs of fire. There’s a liquid dripping down, I get some on my fingers and sniff. Coolant; OK, not a problem. I go and talk to the passenger.

“Are you OK? How are you feeling?”

“He just came over on us!” She says. Like the driver, she’s an elderly woman, clearly shocked, but quite lucid.

“There’s this” she says, lifting up her left arm which is grotesquely broken. Her shock must be masking her pain.

“OK, you keep that down. And you stay where you are, just stay still, help is on the way.”

[I’m unsure about the chronology of what happened next] I look around again. What’s happening? Someone as started to perform CPR, chest compressions, on the woman from the first car. Someone says the girl giving the aid is an off-duty nurse. Thank God for that, but there are still no signs of life. Oh, what are those drivers doing!? Two cars have come up the the outside of the queue, and are now partially blocking the road. Turns out the occupants know the people in the first car. They were all coming back from the same wedding. People move cars around, and we get their vehicles out of the way.

I’m now next to the man who was on the phone, who tells me another guy, an off-duty paramedic, has his phone, and is talking to the emergency control room. Thank God for that as well. We now have a professional on scene, standing the middle of the road, relaying all the correct information back to the ops room. Was there anything I could really be doing now? Or was I now just getting in the way? The guy who was on the phone was immediately behind the Honda I think, and seems stunned. I don’t blame him. He’s driving a Tesla, which I believe always have a forward facing camera running. I point out that the police will want to get any footage he might have of the collison. I look around again. Is anything not being done? Two women are taking turns doing CPR on the woman pulled from the Honda. There are people with both of the ladies in the Skoda, and, miracles of miracles, the driver is now talking to her helpers, although is clearly badly injured. The young woman is still being comforted on the grass verge, someone has found a blanket for her. Which leaves the driver of the Honda, still stuck in his car, no one is seeing to him. I go over.

“How are you feeling?”

“I feel fine, but my wife, what about my wife?”

Oh my God, what can I say? I can see the fear in his eyes, he knows there is something very wrong, he must be able to hear some of what is going on, even though he can’t turn to see. My slight hesitation to answer, maybe the look in my eyes, clearly causes his fear to rise.

“People are helping her now, but I’m concerned about you. How are you feeling? Do you feel any different?”

He doesn’t, and he is still breathing normally, he’s not sweating, his skin is still the same hue, he’s still lucid, talking almost calmly.

The young female passenger is now sitting on the verge, talking to the young woman supporting her. That’s not the best place for her, right next to the CPR being performed on her lifeless mother. The girl might have hidden injuries, possibly physical, certainly psychological, that will be masked by the adrenaline of the impact, adrenaline that will now be slowly leaving her system. I’d sit her in the lorry, but the unusual climb up into the passenger seat wouldn’t be a good idea. I go to the passengers of the Volvo SUV in front of the truck to ask them if she can sit in there, but then discover there are kids in the car. The Volvo driver comes over and says that the girl won’t be moved anyway, she wants to stay near her mother. That’s not ideal, but understandable.

I’m now running out of things of things to do, at least any real or useful things to do. There’s medical treatment going on, maybe someone needs water? I have a 10 litre water carrier in my cab, maybe that would be useful? I go back to the cab, and then sit for a moment. From that elevated point I can see the whole terrible scene. It doesn’t look like anyone needs water, perhaps I’m just wanting to do something because it’s something to do. So I just put my hi-viz on, and go back to see if there’s anything else better to do.

The young woman has now moved over to the other side of the road with her helper. She’s understandably distraught. I go to them.

“My dear, I really think you should go and sit in a car” I say.

“But I want to be with my mum!”

“In understand, but she’s being cared for now, and we have to think about you as well”

She reluctantly agrees, and goes and sits in a car in the east bound queue. I now really have nothing to do. I stop some guys, who are trying to be helpful, from pulling the debris out of the road. There will be an investigation, and the police will want the scene preserved as much as possible. I go stand with some guys on the verge, and then we begin to hear that most wonderful of sounds: sirens. At the same time I hear a helicopter, which is approaching from the north with it’s landing light on. Must be an air ambulance. I give the international SOS arm signal, which is both arms up to make a “Y” shape, like this…

…. although I’m sure the crew had no problems seeing the massive line of traffic, and had been given an accurate location. As the chopper circled to land the first of the paramedics arrive. And then, after what had seemed an interminable wait for first responders, which was in fact just a few minutes, it seems like the entire emergency services for both Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire arrived (the accident happened near the county-line). Not one, but three air ambulances landed (I’ve never seen that before), along with multiple police, ambulance, and fire service vehicles. As the medical and fire crews did their thing, the police started getting preliminary statements. I couldn’t give them much; I hadn’t actually seen the crash, and the company dashcam in my truck only starts recording if it senses a high G event, and I’d been able to brake very gently.

Anyway, now I was kind of stuck. There was no way of the turning the truck around in the road, so I was going to have to reverse for a long way to get to a place where I could turn around. A coach behind me had reversed into a private drive way to turn around, but my trailer was too big for that. As an aside, the coach (or bus, if you’re North American), was full of young men in their twenties, a sports team perhaps, who made no attempt to step forward to help in any way, despite being there for the entire time. They all just stood well back in a gormless huddle looking shocked, and then got back in the coach….

I had ambulances along side the truck, the fire chief’s car behind my trailer, and then a traffic police car and a fire engine behind that, so I wasn’t going anywhere soon. I started talking to the driver of the Volvo, who had been the person who pulled the woman from the Honda I believe. A police officer comes over to talk to us. I know what he’s doing; he doesn’t just want more information, he wants to check we’re OK. An accident like this is a seismic event; the shock spreads out from the epicentre. Witnesses and responders, be they professional or civilian, can find themselves in a state of shock, sometimes well after the incident. The Volvo driver was a concern; he’d just pulled a dead, or dying, person out of a car. That’s a particularly brutal event to happen in anyone’s life.

The police get statements, including mine, even though I didn’t see the actual crash, and all the witnesses start to leave after giving theirs. So I’m left there, sitting in my cab, unable to drive away, with the emergency services busily doing their thing around me, alone to ponder life and death and even my own mortality. As the casualties are stabilised and loaded into ambulances, one of the paramedics, perhaps sensing my isolation in all this, comes over and talks to me.

“Make sure you talk it through with someone” he says “I know you must be OK with your own company, but it’s a traumatic event, it would be best to talk to someone.”

I knew this, and he knew that I knew this, but I appreciated him saying it nonetheless.

Then eventually everyone but the police accident investigators started to go, and I was finally able to leave, reversing about 500 yards back along the closed road to a farm entrance where I could turn around. And then I could just… carry on with my day… That felt weird.

And those comments from that paramedic are the reason you are reading this. I have talked it through with people, but I also process things by writing, so this article is in large part how I’m coming to terms with what happened. So there will no subtext to is, no commentary about society or point about politics, or any of the things I usually talk about. I just need to get it off my chest.

But just this… life is fragile. It will be taken from us all at some point, and maybe when we least expect it. Let’s just try to make it count, as best we can, OK?

And perhaps another thing… perhaps we should all know a little first aid, and what to do in such situations? A little knowledge about risk assessment, triage, and first aid, even if it’s just from a youtube video, might go a long way. I didn’t do much in this situation, perhaps I could’ve done more, perhaps I should’ve done things differently, but there were people who did very good things indeed. The two women who attended to the driver of the Skoda probably saved her life, the two who performed CPR on the deceased were incredibly brave to attempt what they did, the off-duty paramedic was commanding in how he took control and relayed information back to the ops room. I think we should all think about how we could be this type of person, in situations like this and others.

I’m kind of waffling now, so I’ll stop. Just… look after yourselves everyone.