A COUPLE are lucky to be alive after emerging from a wrecked car after it collided with a cow on a road at night.

As reported last week, driver James Shayler, 32, of Cedar Drive, Witney, remains in hospital with serious head injuries, including a fractured skull, eye socket, nose and cheekbone.

The builder was injured when the VW Golf he was driving hit the cow on the B4044 in Farmoor at about 8pm on last Monday.

The cow was killed.

Mr Shayler’s girlfriend, Donna Saunders, 27, was a passenger in the car and is now recovering at home from whiplash injuries to her neck and cuts to her head.

Miss Saunders said the cow had appeared out of the dark and struck the front of the car.

She added: “The cow went up on to the front part of the roof.

“The roof and the windscreen crushed down on the driver’s side, which is when James sustained his serious injuries.

“He managed to get out of the car. I was curled up in a little ball in the passenger seat.

“The weight of the cow crushed the roof down to a foot above the gear stick. The whole roof at the front half was completely crushed down.

“We could have been killed. In my eyes, we are lucky to be alive.”

Mr Shayler passed out for a few seconds after the impact, but managed to crawl out before collapsing by the side of the road.

Both were taken to Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital on spinal boards.

Miss Saunders was released a few hours after the crash, but Mr Shayler, a business partner in MJ Building, is expected to remain in hospital for three weeks.

Miss Saunders said: “He has managed to open one of his eyes.

“They were so badly swollen it was like he was wearing heavy mascara.

“He is very, very sore and the doctors can’t operate until the swelling goes down.”

Doctors at the JR are expected to carry out extensive facial reconstruction surgery within two weeks.

Miss Saunders added: “I cannot understand how a cow got out on to the road.

“It is so dark there and no lights on the road so it was impossible to miss it.”

In Scotland last year, a five-year-old boy died when the car he was travelling in struck a cow in Scotland, while, in 2007 in Somerset, a 54-year-old died when his car hit a cow.

mwilkinson@oxformail.co.uk