A woman was taken to hospital after being rescued from being stranded on a river bank in Tavistock on Monday afternoon (November 11) after a traffic incident.
Witnesses said they saw a car appear to lose control and drive straight on and hit a parked van which in turn hit the river bank wall, damaging it, on Market Road at around 2.45pm. The car driver then came to a halt alongside the River Tavy riverside wall.
The woman ended up on the river side of the wall, stranded on the bank unable to climb to safety, fearing she would fall into the fast-flowing river.
Meanwhile, the driver, who is believed to have been meeting the woman, left his car and was waiting for the woman to be rescued by firefighters who lowered ladders down onto the river bank to try and help her to safety.
A witness said: “We saw the driver in the black car come around the corner and just go straight on. Luckily he hit a van and the wall and a sign or he would have ended up in the river in his car.
”A lady was waiting for him to pick her up. And she fell over the wall and ended up on the river bank. She could not go up or down because she was worried she might fall into the river. There were also pieces of stone from the river which might have fallen on her if she moved.”Police were attending and investigating the incident.
A police spokesman said: “We were notified at around 2.45pm on Monday to reports of a collision involving a van and a pedestrian on Market Road, Tavistock.
“The pedestrian, a woman in her 70s, was knocked into a wall and then fell into the water as a result. Emergency services are in attendance. The woman is now out of the water and is being checked over by paramedics. She is not believed to be seriously injured at this time. Enquiries are ongoing into the incident.”
A spokesperson for the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) said on Tuesday (November 12): "We were called at 2.54pm on Monday , November 11 to a road traffic collision in Tavistock. We sent two double-crewed land ambulances, and an operations officer to the scene. We conveyed one patient by land ambulance to Derriford Hospital."
