A police officer is recovering after being knocked unconscious following a road traffic collision on Friday (8th Jan).
At around 17:00 hours, two officers from Devon & Cornwall Police, attached to the Roads Policing Unit, were helping a driver who had broken down on an unlit stretch of the A361 northbound carriageway at Landkey, North Devon.
The officers were protecting the scene with their marked BMW X5, which had its emergency lights illuminated.
The officers had been on the scene for around 15 minutes when a Citreon C4 collided with the rear of their vehicle.
The officers, a Sergeant and a PC with extensive experience in roads policing were stood at the road’s nearside in line with their training.
The collision’s impact pushed the police BMW X5 into the nearside verge where the two officers were standing.
The BMW then hit both of the officers.
The sergeant was thrown into the verge, suffering minor injuries. The Constable ended up underneath the police vehicle and was knocked unconscious.
The Citreon rebounded into the opposite carriageway colliding with another vehicle, which collided with a further motorist.
The sergeant was able to help remove his colleague from under the police vehicle, and paramedics took him to North Devon District Hospital for assessment.
The Citroen C4 driver, a 77-year old female from Bideford, was physically uninjured but was taken to North Devon Hospital for observations as a precaution.
Chief Superintendent Matt Lawler, Head of Specialist Operations for Devon and Cornwall Police said:
“I obviously spoke to both officers shortly afterwards, and am so relieved to say they were not more seriously injured.
“Both are now at home being supported by their families.
“This was a truly frightening experience for everyone involved, especially for the officer who regained consciousness whilst still lying underneath his own police vehicle, and I pay tribute to the courage and focus of his sergeant in coming to his aid.
“This highlights the dangerous role that our Roads Policing officers undertake every day on our behalf, and it’s obvious to say that this could easily have resulted in fatalities.
“It is a challenging, complex, and risky task to police our fast roads, and we should all be thankful for the dedication shown by our roads policing officers”.
The driver of the broken down vehicle was arrested at the scene on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs, and investigations into the circumstances of the accident continue.
Devon & Cornwall Police’s spokesperson confirmed that officers would also be investigating their reasons for being out during Covid lockdown.
The spokesperson added: ‘The Force would like to thank members of the public for their patience during the road closure that was necessary to facilitate both the investigation and the recovery of multiple vehicles’.
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Our road safety record is very poor. The only reason we do not see more killed on the roads is entirely and exclusively thanks to paramedics. They use the Golden Hour wisely and are very highly skilled. Compare this with Germany where the paramedics are also firemen, so jacks of all trades, while in France, they do not even carry aspirin on the ambulances. Treatment starts at hospital, by which time it is sometimes too late. While our deaths are in the top three lowest, our serious injuries are halfway up the ranking, suggesting that we are not good as we think we are.
It is quite absurd that someone can ;pass a test at the age of 17 and providing they do not get caught, nobody bothers them until the day they die, maybe 70 years later. Nowhere else is dangerous machinery operated with such a complete absense of standards control.
At the very least, every driver should go through a pass/fail assessment at photo card renewal and at 70, have an eye sight test and medical added. To be honest I would like to see an eye sight test every 10 years as a condition of renewal.