M42 driver cheats death as huge metal missile spears into camper van

A camper van driver was left screaming in agony after a massive lump of metal smashed through his windscreen and into his body on the M42.

The kingpin lock was thought to have come loose from a lorry and speared into his van as the victim drove home with his wife.The lock just missed Chris Benn's face after he moved at the last second, but it broke his arm in six places and his wife Rachel claims he may never properly regain its full use.

The 54-year-old could also be off work for up to a year as he recovers, his wife Rachel said.

Warwickshire Police has urged witnesses, or anyone with information, to come forward as the couple appealed to drivers with dashcam footage of the incident.

He suffered internal bleeding, needed blood transfusions and had surgery at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

The couple were driving from Dorset when it happened on the M42 northbound between junctions nine and ten at around 2.30pm on Friday afternoon, June 21.Rachel said she heard an "almighty bang" and saw her husband's arm "dangling" minutes after they had joined the motorway near Water Orton.

She said: "He saw it at the very last minute, and moved towards me to his left, which then put his shoulder up and it hit that instead of his head.

"It went through his head rest. If it had hit him in the face, that would have been game over."The couple said that medics have predicted Chris, a fridge and air conditioning engineer, will be off work for as long as a year due to the severity of his injuries.

Their camper van has been left "completely undriveable."

Rachel, 46, said: "It was horrific. We'd just got on the M42, we'd only been on there for a matter of minutes.

"Our camper van was higher up, if it'd been a car it would have probably gone over the top."I was reading a Kindle so I didn't see what happened, I heard an almighty bang and when I turned around there was a hole in the windscreen and Chris said: 'My arm's gone'."He pulled the wheel and got us on the hard shoulder.

"Suddenly when the adrenaline wore off, he was screaming in agony.

"We have been super-fortunate, it could have been so much worse, but equally it shouldn't have happened."Emergency services, including traffic police and an ambulance, were called.

As they waited for the ambulance, Rachel went into the back to grab painkillers, at which point she spotted the kingpin lock in the back of their van.She said: "It was heavy, I had to use two hands to pick it up.

"It was covered in oil. It must have been coming towards us as it carried on coming through the back. When the traffic police arrived, he said it was a kingpin."Chris was taken to Heartlands Hospital in "so much pain" before being transferred to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where he remained on Monday, July 1.

He required blood transfusions due to internal bleeding and underwent an operation, Rachel said."Chris had his operation, it all went as OK as it could do. There's just a bit of muscle the surgeon can't repair because there's a main artery underneath it.

"He might not ever get his arm back to go over his head, and his job involves that, so it's horrendous. They said nine to 12 months he'll be out of work."Rachel said: "If this [lorry driver] has reached their destination, [they] might be sat at home driving [themselves] insane thinking [they've] killed someone. It was awful, but it could have been worse.

"It's going to affect our lives for a long, long time, but I don't want someone else's life affected as well, worrying [themselves] to death thinking [they've] killed someone."I'm appealing for anyone who was on that stretch of road at that time and with dashcam footage to come forward, then we've got somewhere to start.

"We just want to understand what's gone wrong."Warwickshire Police confirmed it was investigating the incident.

The force said: "We’re investigating an incident where an object went through a camper van window causing serious injury to the shoulder of the driver.

"The driver – a man in his 50s – went to hospital with his injuries. The incident was reported to police at 2.50pm on June 21."Any witnesses or anyone with information can go to Tell us something you've seen or heard | Warwickshire Police or call 101 quoting incident 206 of 21 June 2024."

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