Crash: Anatomy Of An Accident Episode 1

Crash: Anatomy Of An Accident

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Crash: Anatomy of An Accident

 

“I know that there’s going to be more cars hitting, I know that there’s going to be more noise, I know there’s going to be danger but we’re running towards the accident not away from it. It’s just this overwhelming feeling that you’ve got to get people out”. - Jill Hudson, car passenger

 

This new single documentary for ITV focuses on the personal stories of victims caught up in a major road crash involving 130 vehicles and 300 people.

 

On the morning of September 5, 2013, dozens of cars, lorries, vans and motorbikes crashed into one another in thick fog on a 100ft high bridge linking Sheppey Island in Kent with the mainland.

 

Shocking pictures of cars and other vehicles caught up in the mayhem topped newspaper websites and social media as the fog cleared and the news began to break. At the time, police described the fact no-one had died as miraculous.

 

Told from the points of view of those at the heart of the accident, this programme uses testimony from individuals trapped in vehicles, those injured in the incident, and the rescuers who freed them with dramatic reconstructions alongside archive news footage to build a vivid insight into how the people involved felt and acted in the moment and the way the Sheppey Crossing crash changed all their lives.

 

The morning of the crash started normally for the drivers and passengers, who didn’t yet realise the fog that had descended on the bridge, had made driving conditions treacherous. Driver Lisa Snow says: “I just set my day as normal, woke up as normal. I was ready a little bit earlier so I thought, ‘Do you know what, I’ll leave five, ten minutes earlier today.’”

 

Out on the dual carriageway, it quickly became apparent that crossing the bridge would require some care. Driver Graham Thwaites says: “On some days when it’s quite foggy you come up out of it, it can be clear as day. But that day it just didn’t happen. That just got worse and worse and I can remember approaching the bridge at the time feeling quite apprehensive and then quite frightened.”

 

Suddenly, in the thick fog, vehicles started to crash into one another. Passenger Jill Hudson says: “We suddenly realised that there was a van and it had swung round and was facing us in the road and there were two other cars parked in front of it as well that had crashed. As we’re getting through the gap, suddenly there’s a massive bang and the car, it judders and shakes but my husband’s got his foot on the brake really hard. It’s like his feet are going to go through to the floor.”

 

Cars, vans, lorries and motorbikes met at speed in a maelstrom of twisted metal. The crashes continued further back for ten minutes, as vehicles stopped with nowhere to go. Van driver Phil Deverson says: “I think there was still people ploughing into one another hundreds of yards back down the road. I got out the van then to have a look around and survey what was what. You get that sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach where you think somebody’s got to be dead here or smashed to pieces.”

 

Graham, who also got out, was hit by a van, breaking his leg in four places, meaning surgeons faced a race against time to save it. He says: “I can vaguely remember the instant I was hit but after that really, until I came to under the vehicle I really didn’t have any idea quite what had happened. I can remember seeing my foot really right up to my left side and I can remember saying, ‘I’ve lost my leg.’

 

All three emergency services rushed to the scene to face an unprecedented scenario. Fire service watch manager Neil Ryder was on the first engine to reach the bridge. He says: “If you’d have said that was an Armageddon film set, you wouldn’t be far wrong. You do question yourself with whether you can actually deal with an incident like this.”

 

Those who initially felt fine were now starting to suffer as the effects of shock wore off, including Lisa, who suffered severe whiplash. She says: “I just all of a sudden felt really ill, I felt a lot of pain around my neck, around my lower back. People that were in lorries that had high-viz jackets putting them over me, using it as a pillow to support my neck and the pain was too horrible to think. I was thinking, ‘Am I going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life?’”

 

A major incident was declared by the emergency services, who began securing the scene and tending to victims, while drivers and passengers helped others as best they could. Jill says: “I could hear a baby crying, a child crying so I went back to try and help. The lady was really, really shaking and crying and I helped her to get the little boy out of the car, wrap him up in something warm and get her to move away from the car.”

 

Among those trapped in their vehicles was Natasha, with ligament damage to her legs, shoulder and neck injuries. She says: “I couldn’t feel my legs, all my neck hurt, my back hurt. It was all just panic because all I could hear was people crashing behind me, people screaming, people running about, I didn’t know why they were running, I didn’t know whether they were hurt, what was happening - all you could hear were the cars crashing behind you.”

 

She called her fiancé Lee, who rushed to the scene but was powerless to help as firefighters were forced to cut her out of her car. He says: “I’ve jumped on to the other carriageway and run along the fast lane close to the central barrier, I just kept going and going until I could see her car and there was about five or six people around it. Although I really wanted to help I knew that the only thing I could do was nothing, because the people that were there trained to do that are the people that should be doing it.”

 

Hospitals across the region cancelled all planned procedures and braced themselves for people arriving. Dr Abhijit Dey, from Medway Hospital, explains how staff there prepared: “With any car accident you have to prepare for the worst, so you automatically assume there’s going to be four or five passengers, you’re hoping there will be none obviously, but then you start thinking ahead to what injuries they may have. And the numbers were higher than we had expected, much higher eventually. All we could really do was stay in A&E, as patients came into A&E we’d assess them accordingly.”

 

Back on the bridge, the fog had cleared - and the temperature was quickly rising, making conditions uncomfortable for those involved and the rescuers. Paramedic Louise Cole says: “It was exhausting. I was shattered, absolutely shattered and also very sunburnt and I don’t know how that happened because when the fog lifted it was suddenly a very sunny day.”

 

Police searched for people they might have missed. Officer Scott Lynch says: “You don’t know whether you’re going to see or find two people that haven’t managed to get out of their vehicle and the car’s crushed right underneath. You just don’t know what you’re going to find in a scene like that.”

 

Luckily, no-one had died. For Natasha, the nightmares lasted for weeks afterwards. She says: “I couldn’t sleep for weeks after that because whenever it was quiet indoors you would just hear the crash again, all the cars crashing behind you, all the people screaming.”

 

Jill, who ruptured her oesophagus, says the effect on her life was enormous. She says: “I was diagnosed with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). That was quite traumatic because I felt I’d dealt with it and I hadn’t, I was very tearful for weeks and weeks afterwards. I didn’t want to go out, I didn’t even want to walk up to the village where I live, the only place I wanted to be was either at work or indoors because they’re two areas that I can control. I became frightened of my own shadow.”