A HUSBAND has described how he and his wife were sent flying and knocked unconscious as a vehicle crashed into their stranded car at Brampton.
Paul Westerman yesterday told The Hunts Post that his wife Ellisa was still in hospital with serious injuries following Friday’s accident.
Mr and Mrs Westerman were looking under the bonnet of their broken down car at about 2.15pm – he was standing on the driver’s side and she was on the passenger side.
Their Ford Focus had stopped on the edge of the westbound A14 slip road near the racecourse at Brampton.
The next thing Mr Westerman remembers is waking up underneath a Mercedes.
The couple, who live in Catworth, were taken to Hinchingbrooke Hospital, Huntingdon, where Mrs Westerman, 49, remained yesterday.
Mr Westerman, 46, said his car had broken down. He said: “I asked Lisa to get out and said ‘Look, it’s this’ and I remember her saying ‘That’s not good’.
“The next thing was I came to and I was about 30ft away from the car.
“Lisa had been thrown over a barrier and we had both been knocked unconscious.
“When I came to there was a Mercedes on top of me and its radiator was leaking on my legs, which were burned.
“I’ve got several facial injuries and my left side has several lacerations. Lisa has chest injuries, head injuries and injuries to her legs.”
Following the incident, the fire service advised drivers having car troubles to “get to a place of safety and stand behind crash barriers should they need to leave their vehicle on a carriageway”.
But Mr Westerman, who was driving, maintains he had taken up a safe position.
He said: “We were halfway down the slip road and had pulled as far over to the side as we could so that the driver’s side wheel was on the white bumpy bit. That stretch is not a fast piece of road. There was enough room for two-and-a-half cars.
“What we don’t understand is we didn’t hear any noise – there was no screeching, nothing. If Lisa had stayed in the car she could have been thrown through the windscreen or a lot worse.”
Mr Westerman, a marketing director, and his wife, who works as a primary school teacher in Stilton, were on their way home for a dinner to mark Mrs Westerman’s 23-year-old son James’s new job.
Mr Westerman said: “I managed to get to see her on Monday but it’s hard because I’m struggling to get around at the moment.
“We’re both still very shaken up. She still can’t walk around – one of the consultants described it as like having whiplash all over your body.”
INFORMATION: Witnesses should call police on 101.
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