Moment hero mum pushes pram to safety before being mowed down in hit and run
This is the astonishing moment a mum managed to push her daughter’s pram out of the path of a speeding drink-driver moments before he mowed her down and left her for dead.
Becky Sharp, 36, was on her way to a play park with 11-month-old Lorena when she began crossing the road in the Redhill area of Bournemouth on April 11.
CCTV footage shows scaffolder Dale Clark’s Toyota Rav 4 swerving across from the outside lane towards the inside just as Becky leaves the pavement.
Just as the black SUV is about to plough into them, the pushchair can be seen rolling out of harm’s way.
Clark, 38, who was drunk at the time of the smash following a vodka binge, can be seen driving off, leaving Becky lying in the road.
While her quick thinking and supreme bravery spared Lorena any harm, she suffered life-changing injuries after being thrown into the air ‘like a rag doll’ by the impact.
The mum-of-three spent eight weeks in a coma with serious injuries to her head, pelvis, leg, and spleen, which have left her in a wheelchair requiring long-term medical care.
Clark, of New Milton, Hampshire, was last week jailed for three years and eight months after pleading guilty to causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
He also admitted failing to stop at an accident and drink driving.
Bournemouth Crown Court was told he had been using his phone as a sat nav in his lap and driving in excess of 40mph in the 30mph road.
Clark later told police he had consumed vodka and £210 worth of cocaine over the two days before the accident on April 11.
He said he had ‘wiped her out’ but said ‘she literally stepped out of f***ing nowhere’.
Andy Houston, prosecuting, said: ‘Mrs Sharp heroically pushed away the buggy to save the child.
‘She was projected about the length of a cricket pitch in the air, thrown like a ragdoll. She landed face down with blood around her nose, struggling to breathe.’
Sentencing Clark, Judge William Mousley said: ‘You quite clearly were not looking where you were going and you hit Rebecca Sharp.
‘Very luckily and miraculously she had pushed the pushchair ahead of her so you did not collide with her youngest child.
‘The overall picture is that her life has been changed seriously forever. The impact on her and her family has been monumental.’
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