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A carer who flipped her car into a roadside ditch after skidding on black ice feared she would be trapped in the wreckage with no one able to find her.
Jodie Heath was travelling home to Faversham after finishing a 12-hour shift at the Harrier Lodge nursing home in Whitstable when she overturned her Renault Clio along the A299 Thanet Way.
The car had veered off the dual-carriageway on the hill running parallel with the Estuary View business park, disappearing into a ditch 20ft away and leaving Jodie, 23, upside down and disorientated.
Fearing she would remain trapped, the healthcare assistant tried to kick open her windows and doors, but her attempts failed.
Concerned no one would be able to see her wrecked car, which was surrounded by foliage, she scrambled for her phone and called her dad and then the police.
As she waited for help to arrive, she managed to drag herself out of the passenger-side door, but found herself caught between the car and thorny bushes.
Following several attempts, she clambered up and over the underside of the vehicle and waited beside the dual-carriageway.
“I was so far into the ditch that no one would have been able to see me – the police and paramedics said I was about 20ft away from the road," she said.
“Because it was upside down, it was really quite disorienting. I managed to grab my phone and called my dad, and then the police, because I thought no one is going to know where I am."
Aside from a handful of cuts and bruises from the bushes, Ms Heath escaped without injury.
Recalling the accident, which took place at about 8.30am last Saturday, she says she was travelling at less than 50mph when the vehicle started veering across the London-bound carriageway towards the central reservation.
She steered the other way, but the car slid towards a grass ditch running alongside the main road and flipped onto its roof.
“I hit the ditch and the car rolled onto its top,” Ms Heath said.
"I remember when the car was spinning and I was preparing myself for the impact, I was thinking ‘I’m either going to be really injured or dead’.
“[When I got out] I was more concerned about someone else crashing and causing further damage.
“It could have been a lot worse if it was on a weekday at that time as there would have been a lot more cars on the road.”
A police spokesman has confirmed that officers were called to the incident on the London-bound carriageway of the main road just after 8.30am.
Ms Heath believes she is lucky to be alive and is urging others to be careful when travelling during the current cold snap.
“People need to be so careful,” she continued.
“I’m lucky to be here. The police even said they’d seen other crashes that are less dramatic and have led to fatalities.”
