By Julie Armstrong

Last updated 08:38, Friday, 04 July 2008

Firefighter George Sansom has lost count of the body bags he has had to fill, but he will never forget the day he arrived at a crash at Carleton to find his son’s best friend dead.

George Sansom

“He was only 18,” said Mr Sansom, watch manager at Carlisle fire station.

“I’d known him since he was 18 months old. He’d spent hundreds of hours at my house.”

His harrowing account was given to 17-year-olds taking the advanced driving tuition Pass Plus, as part of a presentation called Too Fast Too Furious Two Dead.

Tony Paterson may be a firefighter, but he spends more of his work time rescuing people from car wrecks.

He made no apologies for the graphic nature of his hard-hitting talk, geared at cutting down the 323 casualties – 31 serious – which were caused by 16-25-year-old drivers in the Carlisle and Eden districts last year.

Five people were killed at the hands of drivers of this age behind the wheel.

Tony frankly described the three impacts of a crash – the first when the car is brought to a halt; the second when you hit the car and the third when your body is damaged.

“We’re more of a rescue service than a fire service,” said Craig. In six years, I’ve never had to pull a dead body out of a house fire, but I’ve lost count of the number of body bags I’ve had to zip up at road accidents.

“It is not something you ever get used to. And sooner or later, you know it is going to be someone you know. This is Carlisle – everybody knows everybody. The first I had to go to, the guy had been thrown from his car and impaled. I remember thinking what a big gut he had, before realising he had blood pooling in his stomach. We treat everybody as if they have a broken neck and back, because normally they do. I see people in wheelchairs around town who I recognise from accidents.

“You may feel safe in that metal box, but metal, glass and plastic change shape big time. And you never know what’s around the corner, especially in Cumbria – tractors, cow muck, ice.

“Think about the psychological effects of killing your best friend, of explaining it to their family, of being sent to jail. Police call them road traffic collisions now, not accidents, because there is always someone to blame.”

The young people were told that in the first six months after passing their driving test, one in five will be in a collision. And of those who are not, 70 per cent admit to having a near miss.

Elliot Chekell, 18, of Burgh by Sands, was one of the drivers shown the safety adverts banned on television in the UK. He said: “I’ve seen these before at Caldew School. It is shocking and there were a couple of girls crying, but now that I’ve learned to drive, it’s when you actually do it yourself that you realise just how dangerous it is.”

Chris Hudson, a retired police sergeant, used to train the force to drive. He said: “The chances of winning the jackpot are 14 million to one, yet we still buy lottery tickets. The chances of being killed in a car accident are one in 200. We do these presentations because if all these youngsters started to die of a preventable disease there would be a public outcry. We need to do something proactive, not pulling them out of the wreckage and knocking on their parents’ door.”