Woman and three dogs seriously injured after drink driver joined M5 from wrong side of road

A 27-year-old man left a woman and her three dogs with serious injuries after he joined the M5 in the wrong direction and crashed into an oncoming car head-on.

Ryan Physick of Langmead Road, Crewkerne, admitted to causing serious injury by dangerous driving and having no insurance at Exeter Crown Court on Tuesday 8th August.

He has been given a sixteen-month suspended prison sentence.

Physick had been celebrating his birthday with after-work drinks on 24 March, when he tried to drive home from East Devon to Somerset and took the wrong sliproad onto the M5 motorway.

He crashed head-on into an oncoming car between the Tiverton and Cullompton junctions, at around 9:30pm. He then fled the scene on foot.

The male driver of the hit vehicle escaped with minor injuries, but the female passenger had to be cut free and spent four days in hospital in Exeter being treated for shoulder, back, rib, knee and hand injuries.

She is still not fully mobile almost five months after the crash.

Officers arrested Physick near Willand with a broken arm, where he failed a roadside breath test.

The couple’s three dogs were in the back of the car and were all injured, one losing the use of its legs, another suffering an injured tail, and the third a cut on its head.

The passenger said she was terrified that both she and her dogs would be killed in the accident and is still suffering flashbacks and nightmares.

Police tweeted a photo of the wrecked car after the crash on March 24 this year which showed massive damage to the nearside. The incident closed the motorway for several hours.

As well as a 16 month sentence, Physick is ordered to do 150 hours of unpaid community work and pay £612 costs and victim surcharge.

He was also banned from driving for two years and six months and ordered to take an extended re-test before he is able to drive again.