Nine people were injured after a car crashed into a campsite in Pembrokeshire, before hitting a tent where a baby was inside a cot, eyewitnesses said.
Two of the victims are said to be in a serious condition in hospital after a blue Ford Fiesta flipped, rolled and collided with several people and a tent at Newgale campsite, in west Wales, at around 10.30pm on Saturday.
Mike Harris, who runs the campsite with his wife Clare, said he saw CCTV footage of the car speeding down a hill, losing control and braking, before “catapulting” onto the campsite and rolling over three times.
The vehicle then ploughed into the tent where the baby was sleeping, he said, adding the that child’s family believed it was the cot that saved them from serious injury.
The car landed on top of a family of three, around 100 metres from where it had first applied the brakes on the road, Mr Harris added.
He described how other guests rushed to the scene and managed to turn the car 90 degrees to save the injured who were trapped underneath. “It was human nature at its best, a real team effort,” he told The Independent.
He said he and his wife had left the campsite only moments before the incident and rushed back within minutes when they heard the news from staff, who told him they had heard tyres “screeching”.
Mr Harris described the scene as “absolute mayhem” when he first arrived. “You don’t know where the injured are,” he said. “You can hear screams and all sorts coming from the area, and you don’t know whether they’re from the family of those injured or the injured themselves. It was carnage. Some people were injured very severely. And it was dark – there were only head torches and campfires.”
Two surgeons and firefighters staying on the campsite helped in the aftermath, while emergency services also attended.
The car is believed to have been travelling from the village of Roch towards St Davids with “a number of” passengers when it crashed off the A487. Dyfed-Powys Police said passengers in the car were among those injured.
A woman who lives nearby told The Independent her 17-year-old son is friends with those who were in the car and would have been with them on Saturday night if he had not had to work. She said those who were in the car were aged 17 to 20.
Her son told her he had been speaking with his friends who were in the car that crashed as well as those who were in a car behind and saw what happened. They claimed the car’s tyre had blown out, she said.
The mother said her son was in shock and concerned for those who are injured. He suggested the driver is in hospital, having fractured his neck, while one of the car’s passengers is also in hospital.
The Welsh Ambulance Service said one person was airlifted to the University Hospital of Wales.
South Wales Fire and Rescue Service also attended the scene.
The road was initially closed to allow for police investigations but reopened on Sunday morning.
Dyfed-Powys Police said on Sunday: “Officers are appealing for any information regarding the vehicle, a blue Ford Fiesta, and its occupants.
“We are especially interested in any dashcam footage or doorbell footage which may have captured the vehicle being driven from Roch to the scene of the collision at Newgale.”
