A MAN has told how he climbed into a stream to help an elderly couple who were trapped upside down in their car after it plunged 10ft off a bridge.

Derek Bateman smashed the window of the pensioners’ car with a crowbar and reassured the pair.

He waited with them until emergency services arrived while their Renault Clio filled with 8in of water.

The pensioners, from West Stafford, and named locally as Douglas Gardner, aged 78, and Maureen Gardner, aged 76, were travelling in their blue car when it collided with another vehicle and fell from a bridge over a stream near Frome Farm on Sunday at 9pm.

They spent half an hour in the freezing water and are now being treated for hypothermia in Dorset County Hospital.

The collision, which took place near West Stafford, near Dorchester, demolished the brick bridge over the road close to the junction with the West Stafford bypass.

Derek Bateman, of nearby Frome Hill Cottage, told how he heard the woman passenger of the car cry for help.

Mr Bateman 58, said: “I was in the kitchen at the front of the house when I heard this huge bang. I thought something had hit the house.”

Mr Bateman left his house to find the driver of the other car, a white Volkswagen Polo, phoning the emergency services.

He said: “She was obviously a bit distressed. She told me she had hit another car. She just kept saying ‘it’s gone’.”

High-pitched cries alerted Mr Bateman to the stream, which runs under the road.

He added: “I grabbed my crowbar and slid down into the water to smash the window.

“The woman was asking for help. She said something about the water, I think she was worried about how high it would come but I told her that the water was not very deep.

“It was pitch black out and raining heavily – it must have been terrifying.”

Mr Bateman said: “The emergency services were really good.”

Dorset Police confirmed that a 78-year-old man and a 76-year-old woman had been taken to Dorset County Hospital after the incident, suffering from hypothermia.

A spokesman for Dorset Police said: “We are carrying out a thorough investigation to ascertain the cause of the collision.

“We would like to pass on our thanks to a local resident who submerged himself in the water, offering reassurance to both casualties.”

Grim weather brings chaos

SEVERE weather caused more chaos as falling trees left homes without power for up to 17 hours.

The electricity supply was cut to 1,500 houses in Portesham and surrounding villages in the early hours of Sunday.

Power was restored to 1,100 homes within 30 minutes but trees which had fallen on an overhead network had to be chopped to restore the rest.

A spokesman for Southern Electric said: “The power supply to 400 homes was off for a substantial time. There was a lot of restoration work to do and we got power back to those homes just after 9pm. We would like to apologise to customers.”

A garden wall in Springfield Road, Weymouth, toppled over in high winds and landed on a bridle path on Sunday night.

It is expected to be named as the wettest April on record with gusts of up to 54mph battering Weymouth and Portland.