A 75-year-old driver had a lucky escape from this wrecked car, after it careered off a main road, hurtled down a wooded embankment and landing on its roof in a South Staffordshire country lane.

The impact devastated the Audi A4 and two passers-by feared the worst as they rushed to help the lone occupant. They pulled the driver from the tangled wreckage as leaking fuel threatened to turn it into a fire ball.

A doctor and paramedic stabilised the condition of the patient at the scene before an ambulance took him to nearby RAF Cosford.

The elderly man was then airlifted to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham where astonished medics discovered after a check-up that he was suffering from nothing more serious than a broken rib.

He had been driving along the A41 Kingswood Road between Cosford and Albrighton when the Audi is thought to have careered down the embankment at around 4.45pm yesterday.

West Midlands Ambulance spokesman Murray MacGregor said: “The driver had a miraculous escape.” The unnamed driver is now understood to be making a good recovery.