WEST Somerset Free Press and Wellington Weekly News racing and cricket correspondent Richard Walsh is ‘lucky to be alive’ after a road accident near Honiton earlier this week.

Richard, 72, was driving his car with his wife Sue as a passenger, when it was in collision with a Transit van.

“It was fortunate the impact was full on and not on my side, otherwise I would not be alive,” said Richard who was hospitalised at Musgrove Park overnight with two broken ribs, whiplash and severe bruising.

He was trapped in his car and had to be released by firefighters who prized open the driver’s door.

“My front wing took the brunt of the impact,” he added. “The car is a write-off and has been taken to a compound at Marsh Barton, Exeter. Our possessions are still in the car.”

His wife Sue was less severely injured - mainly bruised ribs and legs - and was not detained at the hospital.

The accident happened near a bridge over the A38 on the outskirts of Honiton on Sunday afternoon.

Police, who were quickly on the scene, are looking into why the couple’s airbags in the car did not inflate.

Richard has been a freelance correspondent for the Free Press and its sister paper, the Wellington Weekly News, for a number of years.

True to the demands of the job, he was back writing this week - and moving around with the aid of an electric chair.

“In many ways we’re lucky, he said. “It could have been so much worse”.

A police spokesman said: “A man in his 30s from Worthing has been reported to court for driving without due care.”