Derry woman pays tribute to three 'heroes' and 'earth angels' who saved her life following frightening car accident

At 1am on July 23, heavy rainfall caused Caroline McGowan’s car to aquaplane. It then hit a tree and somersaulted into fields below, down an approximate 12ft drop.

Her daughter, Rachel, told the Journal how it was a ‘miracle’ her mum managed to get out of the car alone.

Caroline was then forced to climb through brambles and thorn bushes to make her way on to the main road. She was also bleeding very heavily from severe head lacerations and ‘bruised from head to toe’,

Caroline managed to get on to the road, in her bare feet, to call for help, but a ‘number of cars passed her’. Rachel said her mum was then forced to put herself into ‘further danger, by standing in the middle of the road in her bare feet and blinded from the amount of blood running down her face, to plea for medical assistance.’

While some motorists passed by, finally, two cars stopped and three people got out – Tony Ingham, Sarah Thompson and Danielle Kennedy. They reassured Caroline and got immediate medical assistance, staying on the phone to emergency services and taking her straight to Altnagelvin Hospital. They also contacted her family to let them know what had happened and to get to the hospital.

Rachel told how Tony, Sarah and Danielle ‘literally saved my mum’s life’. She outlined how her mum is a ‘minority blood type’ and could have ‘potentially bled out.’ She added how she also may never have been found ‘as the car could not be seen from the main road’.

"We, for the rest of our lives will be eternally grateful to these three earth angels that stopped and saved her. As my mum always said, you’ll never know how being kind can make a difference, They even travelled back from Letterkenny to the hospital during the night and have been continually in contact since they accident. They are truly heroes.”