A MOTORCYCLIST from Newton Abbot is on the mend after suffering potentially life-changing injuries in a car smash at Liverton.

Father-of-five Geoff Hook, 39, was airlifted to Plymouth’s Derriford Hospital after being catapulted from his Yamaha bike when it collided with a Mercedes estate emerging from a junction on the Old Liverton Road last Thursday.

Within hours he was making his way home to Buckland after X-rays and a CT scan confirmed that the gods had been more than kind to him.

The casualty, now nursing a growing number of emerging bruises, was afterwards full of praise for the chopper and ambulance paramedics together with work colleagues who helped him come through the ordeal at the wreckage scene.

But he saved his most fulsome praise for the mystery accident witness who leapt to his aid in the crucial seconds after the devastating impact.

‘He stayed with me right up to the point I was airlifted away by helicopter. I want to thank him for being there when it mattered. He ran from his car like Linford Christie. He held my head and told others not to move me.

‘I don’t think there are many people about who would have done what he did,’ said a grateful Geoff who works as a drainage operative for the Clear-flow business based at Liverton.

He was signed off work for at least a week to recover from the battering his body took in the smash which happened at 6pm, forcing the closure of the busy and dangerous road for two hours.

‘The junction is notorious. I always take care there. All I remember is the car pulling out and me going over the top. I don’t remember landing but I can recall being on the ground and lots of people around me. Then they all rushed me to the air ambulance nearby and strapped me in. I also remember the pain,’ said Geoff who reckons he was flung a good 10ft from his machine before agonising touchdown.

He says he was lucky that he landed on his lower back.

‘Fortunately there were no head injuries. There wasn’t even a scuff mark on my helmet,’ said Geoff who has no qualms about climbing back on a replacement bike in the near future.

‘I’ve been been riding since I was 17 – and never had a proper accident. I use the bike because it gets me through the traffic in Newton Abbot,’ he said on Tuesday.

He is managing to endure the pain a week after the accident which could easily have left him with disabling injuries.

‘I try not to sit around too much at the moment because I seize up – but when I get up I am in a lot of pain,’ he observed.

Police say no action is being taken as a result of the collision which also involved an elderly motorist.