THE husband of a woman left fighting for her life after a horror crash caused by an out of control, dangerous driver has thanked air medics for saving her life.

Wife and mother Dawn Horniman, then 59, was left critically injured after the nightmare episode in Spennymoor town centre, County Durham, last June.

Her husband Mark had parked their car outside The Grand Electric Hall Wetherspoons pub, leaving his wife in the front passenger seat while he went to use a cash point, when Matthew Dale’s bright yellow, turbocharged Vauxhall Corsa, totally out of control, smashed into the Citroen C3, leaving Mrs Horniman with a major head injury, two collapsed lungs and broken ribs and wrists.

Sentencing Dale, then 20, of Binchester Moor, Spennymoor, to three years behind bars at Durham Crown Court last July, Judge Christopher Prince said short of being killed or paralysed, Mrs Horniman’s injuries could hardly have been worse.

A GNAAS helicopter was rushed to the scene and Mrs Horniman was anaesthetised before undergoing surgical procedures. Ten months on, she is still recovering.

But she only received blood en route to James Cook University Hospital thanks to a recently introduced programme allowing medics to give blood at the roadside and in the air.

In little over a year since the launch of Blood on Board, blood has been administered 60 times and 18 lives have been saved.

Yesterday (Saturday), some of those who might not have survived otherwise were reunited with staff and volunteers who helped save their life at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI).

Mr Horniman said: “They saved her life. I don’t even want to think about what the other outcome may have been.

“Without GNAAS and their expertise, Dawn may not have survived and made it to hospital.

“Blood on Board is a critical life-saving procedure and it is a credit to the North-East.

“I want to thank the emergency services and members of the public for their swift response after the crash that day.”

Blood on Board also involves Newcastle Hospitals and volunteers from Cumbria and Northumbria Blood Bikes and was devised by Dr Rachel Hawes, a consultant at the RVI.

An Army Reservist who has served in Afghanistan, the GNAAS doctor said: “About half of people with traumatic injuries who die, die from bleeding.

"Previously, stopping the bleeding could only be done in hospital, but one of the ways to buy yourself time is to replace the blood they're losing. Carrying blood on board is a great step forward."