York vet relives motorway lorry shunt horror (From The Northern Echo)

York vet relives motorway lorry shunt horror

9:40am Monday 22nd March 2010 in

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A NORTH Yorkshire woman screamed "I'm going to die" as the car she was in was shunted sideways along the motorway by a lorry, she said today.

Rona Williams' Renault Clio became trapped under the front bumper of the tanker as she drove along the A1(M) and was pushed along at 60mph until the driver finally noticed her.

The accident was filmed by a passenger in a car travelling on the same stretch of motorway near Leeds, and released on YouTube last week.

Mrs Williams, 31, of York, emerged from the ordeal uninjured but said she was terrified the Arclid Transport HGV would ram her into the crash barrier and kill her so she tried calling for help on her mobile phone.

She told the Daily Mail: "I just screamed at the operator I'm going to die, I'm going to die - can you do something?

"She tried to calm me down but there wasn't really anything she could do at the end of the phone."

Mrs Williams had only joined the motorway 10 minutes away from her vets' surgery in Garforth when her car was clipped by the lorry and twisted sideways, trapping it under the front bumper.

In a bid to release her vehicle, she pulled on the handbrake and flashed her hazard lights to try to catch the driver's attention, as well as that of any other road users, but it took the lorry driver nearly a minute to notice her.

When he did he was "all over the place", Mrs Williams said, and finally managed to bring both vehicles to a stop on the hard shoulder.

The driver did not seem too worried about what had happened, Mrs Williams said, and "he even asked if I thought he needed to hang around."

The YouTube mobile phone footage shows the Clio being pushed by the lorry in the fast lane of the motorway.

A male voice can be heard inside the car from which the dramatic scene was captured, shouting: "He hasn't even seen it."

Arclid Transport said it was currently investigating the incident and West Yorkshire Police are also looking into the crash.