A WOMAN says she is lucky to be alive after driving over a pothole and crashing into an oncoming vehicle.

Rebecca Chapman had been driving along Church Road, Eastchurch, near Sheerness, when she went over the hole, lost control of her Fiesta and crashed into a car coming towards her.

Miss Chapman measured the depth of the hole at six inches and said she was angry that it had been allowed to get that deep. “My car was a complete write-off,” she said.

“How the hell I got out of that alive I do not know. Residents nearby told me it’s been like it for three weeks.

“If that had been a motorcyclist they wouldn’t have survived.”

When the Sheerness Times Guardian contacted Kent County Council’s highways department, a spokesman said an an inspector would be sent as soon as possible with a view to repair the hole.

The spokesman added: "Major roads are inspected monthly, whereas roads like Church Road are inspected six-monthly and any potholes are filled.

"So if it’s not been inspected in that time, or it’s not been reported, we would not have known about it.”

Miss Chapman went to hospital suffering from severe whiplash injuries as a result of the incident.

She added: “It really shook me up. I can barely move the left side of my body. Luckily the driver of the other car was fine and she agreed that the cause of the accident had been the pothole."