A hero passer-by had to help a lone paramedic pull a trapped car smash victim to safety – claiming emergency services did not send back-up quickly enough.

A first responder for the London Ambulance Service (LAS) treated the “screaming” driver of a car within 10 minutes of its head-on collision with an empty 256 bus in Noak Hill Road, Harold Hill, at around 10.10pm last Friday.

But the paramedic was forced to ask a watching resident to help lift the stricken driver, a 51-year-old Brentwood man, from the wreckage of the silver Nissam Micra, because no-one else was there to aid him

Pain

“The first responder kept looking up and down the road for the ambulance and then he asked me to help get the driver out,” said the 50-year-old rescuer, who asked not to be named. “Myself and another man had to rip the driver’s door off, and then I helped get the guy onto a backboard.

“The paramedic told me how to lift [the victim] and manoeuvre him, I don’t have any first aid training but everything felt instinctive.

“The driver kept screaming ‘the pain, the pain’; he must have hurt his back pretty badly as his seat was split in two by the impact.

“I feel the emergency services should have been there a lot quicker. The road was still open, and the guy was trapped in his car. We waited another 25 minutes until another ambulance showed.”

He added: “I was really pleased to have been able to help.”

LAS denies the long delay and says back-up was on the scene within 15 minutes of the initial response.

The driver was taken to the Royal London Hospital, in east Lonodn, with life-threatening injuries, and is now serious but stable.

Police closed the road until 5.30am. The bus driver sustained minor leg injures and was taken to Queen’s Hospital, in Rom Valley Way, Romford.

n Anyone with information regarding the crash should call Havering Police on: 101