The nurse who was knocked unconscious when Casualty actress Amanda Mealing ploughed into his car while high on cocaine said he considers himself lucky to be alive.
Mealing, 57, was said to have been dealing with the traumatic deaths of her father, her best friend and her dog when she took the Class A drug the night before the smash.
He car drifted across the road and crashed into an oncoming Skoda being driven by nurse Mark Le Sage, who was seriously injured and had to give up his career as a result.
The accident happened at 10.14am on January 26 last year, just yards away from her front door in Deeping St Nicholas, Lincolnshire.
Last night Mr Le Sage, 58, said he was thankful to have not been injured more seriously after the smash as he drove his 1.6ton Skoda Kodiaq – the firm’s largest SUV.
The councillor told the Mail: ‘I was very lucky I was in such a substantial car, I very nearly took my motorbike out that day.’
He said he rounded a bend to see Mealing’s Mini on the wrong side of the road. ‘I just came around the corner and “bang” it was right in front of me and she hit the front corner of my car’, he said.
The father-of-three and grandfather-of-five said he was knocked unconscious by the impact and ‘came around to find the car was filled with smoke’.
‘My right foot was trapped under the pedal but I thought the car was on fire and I was just desperate to get out. I think the adrenalin kicked in and I was able to free myself. The driver’s side of the car was bashed but I got out myself out of the passenger side and fell into the road.
‘I now know that the smoke was caused by the airbags going off but I didn’t know that at the time. I’m very lucky. The fire brigade told me afterwards that If I was in a smaller vehicle it might’ve been a different story.’
Incredibly, once free from the wreckage, Mr Le Sage’s thoughts turned to helping the woman who had caused the crash.
‘I looked over and saw she had blood running down the left side of her face’, Mr Le Sage added.
‘Luckly, there was an off-duty fire fighter following my car and he had pulled over to give her first aid. I think my nursing instincts kicked in – I went over to see her. She was still sat in her car. I had to make sure she was OK.’
Mr Le Sage said he was breathalysed at the scene, while police also checked his phone to make sure he hadn’t been using it before the collision. He was assessed by paramedics and advised to attend hospital, but the ambulance that had been allocated to him was diverted to another emergency so he was asked to make his own way to accident and emergency to be checked over.
Mealing was taken to hospital by another ambulance, while an air ambulance had also attended, he said.
The councillor’s compassion extended to the court case, where he told prosecutor Marie Stace on Friday that he did not wish to see Mealing jailed over the collision.
Mr Le Sage said: ‘The prosecutor then relayed that to the court. She has children as well and she will have suffered like I have. I did not think it was appropriate for her to be jailed.’
He added: ‘They said at court that she was an actress but they didn’t go into it (her career).’
The accident left Mr Le Sage unable to continue in his role as a theatre nurse because he had developed a tremor which left him struggling to fill syringes.
He can also no longer stand on his feet all day, or cope with the colder temperatures of the operating theatre which are designed to aide infection control.
But he has been able to change his role to that of a community mental health nurse and says he is ‘just glad it’s all over now’ and grateful for the support of his family and girlfriend Emma Watson, who runs her own marketing business.
Mealing admitted driving with cocaine in her system and driving without due care and attention and was banned from driving for 28 months, reduced to 22 months as she had already served a six month interim ban.
Mealing whose brother died of a drugs overdose when he was aged 18 was also fined £485, and ordered to pay £400 costs and a surcharge of £194. She offered to pay at a rate of £100 a month, which was accepted by the court.
Her solicitor Edward Lloyd detailed the pressures she was under at the time of the accident, saying: ‘Unfortunately it came at a terrible moment in her life.
‘She tells me she was undergoing divorce proceedings from her husband, which was extremely upsetting.
‘Within a short space of time her father had died, she had to put her dog down and her best friend had died. So all of these events occurred. It was deeply, deeply upsetting.
‘She is, however, a lady who has significant health problems. She suffers from blood cancer, so she’s not working at the present time.’
Mealing admitted driving with cocaine in her system at a previous court hearing in Lincoln last September, but had denied driving without due car and attention before changing her plea.
The actress, who has also appeared in the hit film Four Weddings and a Funeral as well as directing episodes of Casualty, Waterloo Road and Coronation Street, had 18mcg of cocaine in her blood, the legal limit being 10mcg.
She also had in excess of 240mcg of benzoylecgonine (the chemical that cocaine leaves after being metabolised by the body) – almost five times over the legal limit of 50mcg.
Prosecutor Marie Stace said Mr Le Sage, who is also a district councillor, remembered ‘an explosion and his car began to spin’ after Mealing’s Mini Cooper smashed into his Skoda on the A1175 at Hop Pole, near Stamford in Lincolnshire.
She added: ‘He started to panic, the car was full of smoke and he couldn’t get out because his foot was stuck under the pedal.
‘He did get out and was assessed by a paramedic who said he needed to go to hospital.
‘There was a witness following the Mini, who said he assumed there was something in the road because it went onto the other side of the carriageway.’
