A stranger stopped me bleeding to death after my truck flipped on the way to work

A crash survivor says he owes his life to a stranger who helped save him after he flipped his truck.

Richard Jones, from Neath, was left with devastating injuries after hitting a barrier on the A40 in the near-fatal crash in Carmarthenshire.

He lost his right leg, broke both femurs, shattered his left hip, broke his pelvis, suffered kidney and liver failure and brain damage. He was in a coma for 10 days.

He was found by ex-army medic Ian Thompson, who was able to tie two tourniquets and make a pelvic splint before emergency services arrived.

Jones, who needed 100 pints of blood following the crash in February 2020, is now urging people to donate blood.

The dad told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast he had been travelling to Carmarthen for work, following the speed limit, when he took the slip road and "didn't follow it around".

"[I] hit the barrier and it just flung me 15ft (4m) up in the air, into one of the big signs, and ended up semi-ejected from the vehicle from 20ft away," he said.

Ian Thompson arrived at the scene "within minutes" and gave Jones the "chance to stop bleeding out".

Jones, who was 30 at the time of the crash, said: "The injuries I'd sustained and the severed artery in the right leg, obviously the blood was just pumping out, so without that [help] I wouldn't be here today."

From there, he received six pints of blood on the roadside once the Wales Air Ambulance arrived, giving the construction worker a chance to be transported to Morriston Hopistal in Swansea.

Jones said it had since been a difficult recovery, recently undergoing his 13th, and he hopes final, surgery since the accident.

But he believes in some ways his life is now "better" since the accident thanks to his volunteer work for Wales Air Ambulance, the Limbless Association and Morriston Hospital's Artificial Limb and Appliance Centre (ALAC).

"If I can help, it's a way of giving back," he said.

"I just can't say no to anything now, big or small, the opportunities are there, do them."

Jones, who said he had to live in his parents' living room for three-and-a-half years until he was able to "bum shuffle" up the stairs, added everything changed when he was fitted with a prosthetic leg.

"I was given a prosthetic leg, and yeah, as soon as I was given that chance, it was pushing myself then to get to where I need to be."

Since Jones cannot give blood due to his transfusions, he now speaks about his experience to encourage others to do it instead.

“If I hadn’t gone through this, [I wouldn't know] how desperate we are for blood," he said.

"It's an hour of your day, it's not much to give and your blood could save a life."