I took a huge breath and screamed out of the window at the top of my lungs, partly due to pain, partly due to shock, and I think partly out of anger about what had just happened. When the car stopped moving, I thought I had been pushed over to the right side of the road, but I now know that I had been turned around 180 degrees, facing back in the direction I was coming from. I remember hearing an enormous bang and the force of being moved around on the road. This all happened in a couple of seconds when I realised with horror that the car was going to hit me.
I didn’t really have time to react, but I remember considering the left side of the road where there was a ditch and feared that, if I went to the right side of the road, the other driver might suddenly swerve to correct themselves.
I was travelling towards Woodford, Northamptonshire, and was heading up a hill when a car came round the bend at the top of the hill on my side of the road. I usually drop her at 7.45am so that I can start work early and finish by 2.30pm and spend the rest of the day with both my daughters. On the morning of my accident I had just dropped my eldest daughter, who had just turned seven, at her school breakfast club. Janette is a probate lawyer at a High Street practice and is a married mother of two children aged seven and four.
On the aircraft that day were Paramedic Paul Rock, Pilot Dave Nicholls and ICU Consultant Gordon Craig. Janette’s accident took place in Northamptonshire, and as both local Air Ambulance crews were out on other calls, the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance was called to the scene. Last year we rescued Janette Houghton after she was involved in a serious road traffic accident on her way to work.