A HEROIC driver has told how he stepped in to help the victim of a six-car crash on the A12.

David Linghorn-Baker, 41, from Colchester, is a registered operating department practitioner, and a lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University.

He said he has often helped in situations when he was officially off-duty and was at the crash on the A12 last Wednesday.

The collision happened on the Colchester-bound carriageway between junctions 19 at Boreham and 20 at Hatfield Peverel and caused both sides of the carriageway to be closed.

A man was taken to hospital with serious but not life-changing injuries.

David said: “We were driving down the A12, when suddenly all the traffic came to a halt, I wasn’t sure what happened, but saw a couple of police cars fly past.

“I jumped out and looked and could see four cars, one of which was upside down.

“There were no emergency services at the scene yet, as the police had just arrived.

“I went down and asked if anybody was hurt, and they told me that there was someone trapped in one of the vehicles.

“I went round and the fire brigade were there already there holding his head.

“I got in the passenger side, treating and assessing him top to bottom, I treated him for about 15 minutes and got him stable.

“Eventually we managed to get him out, on to a stretcher when the ambulance arrived, before giving a handover to them and thankfully his injuries were not life-changing.”

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David has also helped a holiday-maker on a plane and even saved wife Angela’s life after she suffered anaphylactic shock.

He also runs a not-for-profit first aid group, Essex Medics Ltd, helping at events and charities.

David said it was “basic instinct” and his “moral obligation” to help in these situations.

He said: “It really is just a basic instinct to help, I’ve always had it.

“It’s also like a moral obligation, like God forbid if somebody dies or gets seriously injured and I didn’t help, I couldn’t live with myself.

“It is always about doing the right thing and I always teach my students, that it is the simplest first aid skills that save lives.”