Basingstoke firefighters help save life of woman in M3 horror crash

Danielle Bartley was involved in the crash on November 14 last year.

The mother-of-one had set off for a meeting and was driving down the M3 at 60mph when she saw a puddle ahead.

She said: “I remembered something that my father always said to me – ‘don’t break when hitting a puddle’. It was too late to change lanes without putting other cars at risk too.

“I’ll not forget the moment my car went into that puddle. My heart sank. I just knew that I was in trouble. The car started to spin and all I could do was put my right arm on the roof as a way of trying to hold myself in.

“My car aquaplaned and soon after it flipped over, again and again.

“I later found out that my car span six times up onto an embankment and back down again.”

Danielle, who is a foster carer, said she remembers time passing slowly, adding: “It’s amazing what goes through your mind in what’s actually a very short space of time. I thought about my little boy, the fact that he doesn’t have a daddy and now he might lose his mummy too. I begged the car to stop and then I felt a really sharp pain to my head and everything went blank.”

When she woke up, she said: “I could see smashed windows, blood everywhere and what felt like cold air coming from the side of me. I felt no pain at all.”

A woman stopped and went to Danielle to try and keep her conscious and phone for an ambulance.

Danielle said: “I asked her if I was going to die. Again it went blank.”

Firefighters from Basingstoke were called to the incident and used cutting equipment to free Danielle from the wreckage.

South Central Ambulance service sent Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance along with an ambulance and hazardous area response team.

Danielle, who lives in Andover, said: “My arm was bleeding badly. It later emerged that my arm had smashed through the window and that my car had rolled on top of it.

“The crew on the Air Ambulance did an amazing job and without them I wouldn’t be here today.”

Danielle was taken to Southampton General Hospital where she stayed for four days before being transferred to Salisbury hospital.

She spent two weeks in a coma, underwent 38 hours of surgery on her right arm and was treated for septicaemia.

She needed a metal brace in her skull and suffered six broken bones in her neck and four in her spine.

Unfortunately, surgeons were unable to save Danielle’s right arm, and it was amputated just above the elbow.

Danielle said: “2015 will be a road of recovery, but I’ve already done better than expected, so I will get through this.”

She added: “I cannot thank the Air Ambulance team enough for the wonderful work they did that day. I would never have made it by road ambulance, and the service they provide is vital for us all. I wouldn’t be here, and my son wouldn’t have his mum – his only parent.”