THE Herefordshire coroner has praised a kind-hearted motorist who sat with a road accident victim during his final moments, an inquest heard last Thursday.
When Robert Lee came upon a horrific accident, he sat with Stephen Jackson in his badly-smashed Land Rover Discovery to wait for emergency services in the early hours of July 12 last year.
Mr Jackson, of Forgebank, Bosbury, had been on a night out with friends when his Land Rover smashed into a telegraph pole, through a metal fence and hit a tree on the B4212 Bromyard road.
Jeremy Davies, Mr Jackson's friend, said they had gone to Hereford and as designated driver, Stephen had drunk cola throughout the evening.
Mr Lee, of Grange Farm Cottages, Bosbury, was going to collect his wife at around 2am, when he saw part of the telegraph pole and another vehicle parked at the side of the road.
He pulled up and spoke to Paul Didlick and his passenger, who had already called the emergency services.
Mr Lee went down to the Land Rover to see if he could help and managed to get into the passenger seat to sit with the injured man until paramedics arrived.
His wife, Diana Lee, had already begun to walk thinking her husband would be along soon when she saw Mr Jackson, 38, drive past.
"He came past perfectly well on the straight and then the next minute he shot off towards the middle of the road. He was going quite fast, rounded the bend and that was the last I saw of him," she said.
She negotiated the bend and then she heard her husband's voice.
Motor vehicle accident investigator, PC Dave Sidley, said evidence suggested either Mr Jackson was preoccupied with something in the car or may have started to fall asleep.
Hereford pathologist, Dr Mark Hayes, confirmed Mr Jackson died of head injuries so serious that if death was not instantaneous it would have occurred within a few minutes of impact.
Recording a verdict of accidental death, county coroner David Halpern said: "Sadly, I am not able to pinpoint exactly what went wrong here.
"He was wearing a seat belt and it seemed from his earlier driving that evening that he had been driving in a proper manner."
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