A young car crash victim has spoken out about his near-death experience and road to recovery.

Nathan Welch, 25, nearly lost his life and spent six months in a wheelchair after the devastating car crash in 2014, which left him with 12 broken bones.

Now during the Road Safety Week on November 14-20, the Aylesbury resident has paid tribute to the critical care paramedics and doctors, who saved him after the head-on collision with a Transit van on A41 towards Bicester.

Mr Welch said: “I knew it was about to happen when I saw these bright lights coming towards me. So I put my arms up to cover my face.

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“After the crash, I came round and told a woman passerby ‘please hurry up and get me out of here, please tell my mum I love her’.

“I didn’t think I was going to make it – that was such a weird feeling.

“I remember waking up, it wasn’t for long for about 10 seconds. But in those 10 seconds Thames Valley Air Ambulance were there by my side, by my window reassuring me that I was going to be OK. Even though I had the taste of blood in my mouth and I could feel the rain on me, I knew I was going to be OK because they were right next to me.

“When I first realised Thames Valley Air Ambulance were there, I felt a sense of relief. Even though I knew I was in a bad way – I couldn’t see or feel any part of my body – hearing their voices gave me the reassurance I needed.”

While putting his arms up prevented serious damage to his eyesight, he was still seriously injured.

He spent two weeks in John Radcliffe Hospital’s ICU and another four recovering on the ward before he was discharged.

Until he was rehabilitated for six months and learnt how to walk again, Mr Welch “wasn’t able to just get out of bed, go have a shower, go to the toilet or go downstairs.”

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“It was hard to come to terms with that at first, I didn’t feel like I did before the crash and it was hard. Over time I used that as motivation to get up and get moving, to go out and see my friends.”

Critical care paramedic James Perks said road traffic collisions were the fourth most common call out for the critical care teams.

Mr Perks said: “Critical care paramedics and doctors bring an advanced level of drugs and equipment to an incident like this, where our skills can make a difference to the kind of injuries often seen as a result of road traffic collisions.

“But none of this would be possible without the communities we serve helping to keep us on the road and in the skies, delivering pre-hospital emergency medicine to those who need it most.”

Now Nathan, who works in Marlow, is fronting Thames Valley Air Ambulance’s first ever Christmas raffle to raise money for patients like him.

Thames Valley Air Ambulance, a charity which doesn’t receive regular government or National Lottery funding, is called out seven times a day to help critically ill patients.