A WOMAN has spoken of the moment she pulled a man from a burning car following a crash on a Hampshire road.

Former first-responder Teri Burrows was at a bottleneck waiting for on-coming traffic on the B3084 in Mottisfont on September 21 at 5pm, when a car behind her swerved into bushes to avoid a crash.

Ms Burrows said the car hit a tree stump in the bush before flipping over twice before coming to a stop on its side.

She said: “I saw it all happen in the rear-view mirror, it was quite noisy so I looked in the rear view mirror and I saw it flipping and I thought I was a goner.”

She added: “As I got out of the car I saw the smoke and it was on fire, there was no sign of anyone trying to get out, so I thought the guy was unconscious at that point.

“There were a few other people getting out of their cars, I shouted to a couple of guys behind me I said we’ve got to get the people out.

“I saw the flames and I held back for a couple of seconds to see if anyone was willing to help and it seemed at that point that everyone was a bit afraid. I can totally understand that I don’t blame them because I’ve seen cars explode so I jumped up on the car and opened the door.

“It was the hardest thing ever it was so heavy, but I managed to get it open and the guy I think he had knocked himself unconscious because he hadn’t been attempting to get himself out or anything but I shouted at him asking him to help me get him out because his car was on fire so he grabbed my shoulder and I kind of levered him out, luckily he was in his 50s but he was quite a fit bloke and he wasn’t too heavy, I don’t know what I would have done if it was a family.”

Ms Burrows said the man collapsed with shock following the incident and people from a nearby house who had heard the crash helped her drag the man onto their lawn where he was put in the recovery position and police were called to the scene.

Ms Burrows said: “I really thought I might be pulling out a dead man from that car, I couldn’t believe that he was still walking.”

Terri said the man in the car had messaged her to thank her for what she did saying “you’ve saved a very bad situation from getting much worse”.