A DRIVER has told how he rushed to the aid of two officers after a police vehicle was involved in a crash.

A woman in another car in the two vehicle crash suffered a serious leg injury in the collision and the two officers suffered minor injuries.

The incident sparked a major emergency response, with police, ambulance and an air ambulance attending the scene near Dorchester. A road closure was in place for three and a half hours. 

Paul Bendall was first on the scene following the crash in Herrison Road in Charlton Down at the junction with the Old Sherborne Road C12 on Tuesday evening just before 10pm.

The retired PE teacher, from Portesham, was returning from seeing a friend in Shaftesbury and said that as he approached the junction he became aware of a ‘flash of a police car coming to an abrupt halt in a hedge.’

The 62-year-old, who taught at the Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester, sprang into action.

He said: “I thought that there are going to be other cars coming along and making this into a multiple collision so I blocked the road with my car with the hazard lights on.

“I approached the police car, I was so relieved when I got there and heard them groaning and moaning."

The quick-thinking Good Samaritan also put up road closed signs he found in the police car to stop the traffic.

Mr Bendall, who has experience in first aid from previously co-ordinating school outdoor trips, said he kept speaking to the officers involved, a man and a woman, to check they were OK.

“They looked really shocked as they would be. I was happy with the fact that they could walk about. I was worried about them.”

He spent the next 20 minutes talking to the officers checking they were OK, he said, and telling them help was on the way.

A nurse who passed the scene stopped to help the elderly driver of the other car, he said.

Mr Bendall stayed on the scene for an hour helping the police to direct traffic while the road was closed.

He said: "It was a very shocking incident but I think we all have to help each other. We are all a community ad you have to do what you can to try to help."

Following the incident a referral has been made to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

A Dorset Police spokesman said: “We received a report at 9.52pm on Tuesday 26 November 2024 of a collision involving a police car and another vehicle in Herrison Road in Charlton Down.

“A road closure was put in place and the local authority was notified.

“A woman was taken to hospital for treatment to a serious leg injury and two officers sustained minor injuries.

“Recovery was arranged for both vehicles and the road was reopened at around 1.20am on Wednesday 27 November 2024.”

A spokesperson for the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) said: “We were called at 21:51hrs on Tuesday 26 November to a road traffic collision near Charminster.

"We sent one double-crewed land ambulance, an air ambulance, and an operations officer to the scene. We conveyed one patient by land ambulance to Dorset County Hospital.”