WEYMOUTH Football Club chairman Martyn Harrison is lucky to be alive after walking away from a road smash that wrecked his new Jaguar XJ8.
Mr Harrison’s daughter Faye had to be cut free from the front passenger seat of the £60,000 car and rushed to hospital after it hit a crash barrier at 70mph and spun into the air.
Faye, 17, escaped with a cut face and neck injuries, while her millionaire father sustained muscle and back strains from the impact with air bags.
But the Terras boss said the silver-blue Jaguar, which weighs nearly two tonnes, was a write-off after the crash took place on the M3 at the Eastleigh junction.
Mr Harrison, 55, said: “I was doing 70mph in the inside lane when I hit the bar between the motorway and the slip road.
“We took off, and the two front wheels went sailing off down the road.
“I lost the engine, a door was cut off, the bonnet is flat – the only part of the car that was not seriously damaged was the boot.
“The doctor said to Faye we were very lucky and if we had hit another vehicle it would have helped to slow us down.
“The police closed off the road and said if we had been in a smaller vehicle we would have stood no chance.
“I’m just relieved that we are all right and it was only the two of us in the car – we were lucky because the road could have been a lot busier.”
The pair were travelling from London back to Weymouth in time for a meeting at the Dorset Echo.
Mr Harrison was discharged before Faye, who needed to be kept under observation.
Paying tribute to doctors and nurses at Southampton General Hospital, he said: “They were fantastic – but Faye was really keen to come back so she could see the Terras play in today’s home match against Bognor Regis.”
