Oswestry, Shropshire woman's campsite near-death experience

Ellie Owen, 21, a former Llanfyllin High school pupil, was camping at Newgale in Pembrokeshire last week when a Ford Fiesta, which she said had ‘seven teens inside’, came flying past the tent she was sharing with friends and family.

One man was injured under the car as helpers dragged it away from him but Ellie admitted she will need time to get over her own and her family and friends’ brush with death.

But she also admitted pride in how she, her mum Kerry Owen and others from the Newgale campsite reacted to the tragedy.

She said: “It will take a little while for me to get over that.

“One because of how close it was to us and two because we actually saw it happen.

OTHER NEWS:

• Man whose body was found at Chirk Aqueduct is named
• Top Gear-esque car boat seen cruising along canal
• Take a look inside Old Vicarage which is on the market for £1.25m

“If it had come off the road a couple of seconds earlier, me and the group I was with, we would have been dead because the way my car was parked, the impact of the car coming off the road would have crushed us.

“If it had come to us, we’d have died.

“My mum and I are first aid trained so we were running around helping people – mum stayed with a baby that was hurt until he was taken to hospital (which was saved by his cot).

“She checked him to make sure he was ok, which he was, and I was running around giving people blankets and water and trying to keep them calm.

“I was quite proud of myself as we’d just witnessed something that nearly happened to us but still helped in every way I could.

“It was the same with the other campers too, though they didn’t see it as close up, but they rushed to help and it was a magical thing to watch everybody pull together.

“That changed things as well because if nobody had started to help like they did, it would have come out very different as well.

“It was seeing the best of people.”

Ellie believes the car was travelling at speeds up to 90mph before slamming on the brakes to enter a 30mph zone.

She added: “All of a sudden we heard tyres screeching which again we thought would pass because you hear them all the time and think they will never come near you.

“But then we heard the bang and the sound of a car hitting a kerb, then lights flying behind us and then a car bouncing and flying behind us.

“It then ploughed its way through the tents before there was a couple of seconds of silence before we heard all the screaming from the tents next door.

“This caused everyone to run over – I picked up my phone and was onto 999 as quickly as I could and when they asked me who do we need, I said I didn’t know.

“I just said send everyone you can because I didn’t know if anyone was dead or not, but all I knew was that a car had rolled over on top of someone.”

Three people remain in hospital after the crash, in which the car is believed to have been travelling from the village of Roch towards St Davids.