Trio of friends help A358 crash victim (From This is The West Country)

Trio of friends help A358 crash victim

4:00pm Thursday 21st February 2013 in News By Hannah Green

A LATE-NIGHT mission to Taunton to get a kebab quickly turned into a rescue effort for three young men from West Somerset.

Taunton School student Benson Pocock, 18, from Stogumber, University of Greenwich student Hugo Hall, 19, from Kingston St Mary, and Andrew Feasby, 21, from Williton, who works as a chef at the Blue Ball Inn at Triscombe, became unlikely heroes at 3.30am on Sunday.

As they drove back to Stogumber, the friends came across an upturned car in the middle of the A358, near the turning for West Bagborough.

They stopped, called the emergency services and did what they could until they arrived about 15 minutes later.

Hugo said: “We were the second group of people on the scene but I think we arrived just after it happened.

“After we stopped, a man was trapped inside the car and we could see his pale face – we thought he was dead at first.

“He had his top button done up and he could hardly breathe, so we undid that to make him more comfortable.

“His eyes were rolling back in his head, so we were chatting to him, trying to make him as comfortable as we could and making sure he was still breathing.

“We also tried to warn the four or five cars that went past before the police got there. I’m glad we were there to help out and we wish the man a speedy recovery.”

The casualty is believed to have been travelling home after finishing work in Minehead.

Two fire engines and a rescue tender from Taunton attended and crews freed the man from the car using hydraulic cutting equipment.

An ambulance crew and paramedics in a rapid response vehicle assessed him at the scene before he was taken to Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton with back and neck injuries, not thought to be life-threatening.