Women tell of fight to revive road victim

Two women have told how they tried desperately to revive a teenager knocked down and killed by a car in the early hours of Sunday.

Vicky Brown and Janine Currie say they tried their hardest to save 19-year-old Alex Knight, who was struck by a car in Birchs Rd, Lincoln.

Mr Knight had decided to get out of the car he was being driven home to Prebbleton in at 2am after a night out in Christchurch.

He was hit moments later as he stood on the road, and died at the scene - one of seven people killed on the roads in a grim Queen's Birthday weekend.

The male driver of the car that hit Mr Knight had been drinking, police say.

Mrs Currie and Mrs Brown were driving home after celebrating Mrs Brown's birthday in Christchurch when they came across the accident.

"We were just chatting about the night, we went from laughing our heads off to being involved in extreme trauma and emotion 10 minutes later," said Mrs Currie.

The night was clear but very dark when she suddenly saw a young man standing in the road, waving them down.

"I slammed on the brakes. I asked, 'What's wrong?' and he said, 'My friend's just been run over.' I jumped out of the car and yelled to Vicky to call 111.

"I went over to check on the boy, tried to find a pulse, to wake him up or see if he could hear me. But I couldn't find anything."

While Mrs Brown called for help, Mrs Currie went to check on the driver of the car which had hit Mr Knight.

"He was obviously very shocked. He said to me, 'Is he okay?' I said, 'He's not looking too good.' And then he burst into tears. He said, 'I didn't see him, I just didn't see him."'

Mrs Brown said she lost track of time while she tried to resuscitate Mr Knight.

"It felt like a minute but I know I did a lot of CPR because my body's aching."

Mrs Currie was by her side relaying instructions on how to perform CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation from an emergency services staff member on the other end of the phone before fire, ambulance and police staff arrived to take over.

Mrs Currie said Mrs Brown was in "extreme shock" when an ambulance staff member told them Mr Knight would have died on impact.

"She was 99 per cent sure he was alive and we could save him."

"In some ways it made it easier to know that we didn't lose him, he was already gone."

Lincoln police said charges relating to drink-driving would be laid against the driver of the vehicle which struck Mr Knight.

- APN