Yazmin Oukhellou ‘snapped her arm’ to free herself from car crash that killed boyfriend Jake McLean
The Only Way Is Essex star Yazmin Oukhellou has recalled “snapping” her own arm to free herself after a 70ft cliff plunge car crash that killed boyfriend Jake McLean. The 28-year-old had spontaneously flown to Turkey to reconcile with on-off boyfriend McLean, 33, and “things were perfect” before the accident happened. She told the Sun: “We were just tumbling for what seemed like forever. It felt like I was going round in a washing machine, just round and round. “Then eventually it stopped and my right arm was jammed. “The car was upside down. It had an open sunroof and my right arm was just stuck behind my back and under the folded back of the car roof. “I tried to honk the horn with my foot and I couldn’t do.”
The reality star then revealed she had severed an artery in her arm during the crash. She said: “I could just felt my arm absolutely covered in blood. It was like I was lying in a hot bath, there was so much around me. “At the same time I was trying to wake up Jake. I didn’t want to admit it to myself that he could be dead. “So I thought, ‘Right, I can either lay still and bleed to death, or snap my own arm to try to save us, I had no choice. “So I somehow snapped my arm through pure adrenaline and panic. I climbed out of the car, and I was kind of holding my arm together with my left hand. “I ran up to the top of the bank, I was screaming for help and then all of a sudden I saw a flashlight.”
Oukhellou said there was a man walking his dog who ran over, took off his top and wrapped it around her arm. “I climbed back down and tried to check his pulse but I couldn’t feel anything and then the ambulance came. “They were helping me. I was like, ‘Please can you just help him’ and they were like, ‘We just need to take him to another hospital’. “I think they knew, but for me even now I still feel like it’s not real. I still feel like I’m just waiting to wake up from a nightmare and it’s just something that never happens,” she said.
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Oukhellou, who made her Towie debut in 2017, explained she had spent the night at a club with friends in the tourist resort of Bodrum before the couple had decided to drive to a friend’s villa “high up in the mountains”. She added that she had fallen asleep in the car, and that when she awoke it was veering off the cliff. “Now I know that if I wasn’t asleep I probably wouldn’t have survived because the doctor said that meant my body was more relaxed. “I severed an artery and a nerve, that’s why I bled so much. The doctors called me an angel, a miracle, because it’s a notorious spot and people have never survived. “Now I’m just wondering how the hell did my partner die while I’ve survived? It’s made me look at life totally differently."
She said that she is going to need therapy "for a while", as it will live with her "forever".