Woman driver trapped for 20 HOURS after car careers off road

Woman driver trapped for 20 HOURS after car careers off road and plunges 400ft before stopping on cliff edge.Driver, 56, tells rescuers she 'missed the road By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

This is the moment a woman driver was pulled to safety after spending 20 hours trapped in her car balancing on a cliff edge.

The car careered halfway down the 400 ft cliff face in St Agnes, Cornwall yesterday after 56-year-old driver Lyn Venton, lost control.

But the Vauxhall Vectra was only spotted at 9.30am this morning after passing jogger Ben Stafford, who also became stranded when he went to her rescue, raised the alarm.

Rescue operation: The driver is winched to safety after her car careered off the road in St Agnes




Mrs Venton, who lives in Truro, Cornwall, with her husband John, told Mr Stafford she had 'missed the road' because of the poor visibility and careered out of control yesterday at 4pm.

She is tonight recovering in hospital and is expected to be released tomorrow. She is being treated for shock, exhaustion, and cuts to her legs and body at the Royal Cornwall Hospital.



He said: 'It was extremely bizarre. A girl who was on the path next to me said we should go and check if there was someone in the vehicle.

'I didn't think for a minute there would be but climbed down to the car fully expecting it to be empty and there was a lady in the passenger seat in shock.

Trapped: The car, circled, rolled down the cliff edge after the driver said she 'missed the road


'There was blood in the the car and glass was smashed with the cars roof caved in.'

He added: 'By the grace of god the car stopped. I stayed with her for a round an hour until the emergency services arrived just trying to keep her calm and still."

Police and helicopter crews were drafted in to pull the pair to safety from the sloping cliff edge

The accident happened near a car park and access road to St Agnes Beacon, which rises 625ft above sea level on land owned by the National Trust.

It is not yet known how the car lost control but it had come to rest sideways around 60ft from the top of the cliff. The airbag had deployed and the front and rear windscreens had both been smashed.

Safe: Emergency services carefully attached a winch to the balancing car before removing the woman driver

Perilous: Rescuers pulled the driver to safety from the 300 ft cliff face


A Falmouth Coastguard spokeswoman said: ‘Coastguard rescue officers on scene were able to establish that the 56-year-old woman inside the car was injured but conscious.

The driver has since been removed from the vehicle, is conscious and is suffering what appear to be only minor injuries and shock.'

The vehicle was very damaged and had come to rest on the steepest part of the cliff over a drop of a few hundred feet.'

Dangerous: Police, the coastguard and paramedics gather to conduct the rescue operation

 

Mike Pulley, station manager at the National Coastwatch Institution (NCI), St Agnes Head, said the cliffs in the area where the car is trapped are 400ft (91.5m) high.

Mr Pulley, 64, said: "The cliffs round here have got quite a bit of a slope - they are not sheer cliffs - and that may well have saved this driver.

'It could be that this car is lodged in one of the crevices - the car can't be seen from our look-out position.'

He added that Richard Eagle, a volunteer NCI watch keeper at St Agnes Head, called the emergency services after being alerted by members of the public this morning.

The NCI is a voluntary organisation which keeps watch along the UK's shores.

A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Police added: 'Police, HM Coastguard, Cornwall Fire and Rescue and the ambulance service dealt with an incident in St Agnes where a car and its occupant were trapped after going over a cliff.'

The woman was taken to Royal Cornwall Hospital by helicopter for observations. It is not thought that she has serious injuries.