Actress relives moment she was crushed by car

Actress Leslie Ash today described the horrific moment when she was crushed between two cars in a freak accident.

The star broke her pelvis in two places last September when her Range Rover rolled backwards and pinned her to a parked car.

Ash, who plays a nurse in the ITV1 series Where The Heart Is, found the roles reversed when she was taken to hospital for treatment.

The 42-year-old actress was trying to park outside the home she shares in south-west London with her husband Lee Chapman when their dog Charlie ran out of the house into the road.

She said: ‘‘I jumped out of the car to save the dog and the car started rolling backwards.

‘‘I tried to stop it but it kept coming and it trapped me so I couldn’t move out of the way. There was this horrible popping sound.

‘‘I just screamed, it was so painful. Lee ran out and moved the car and I was whisked off to St George’s Hospital. When I arrived I was in a hell of a lot of pain and just shouting ‘morphine, morphine’.

‘‘But all the nurses found it hilarious because they’re more used to seeing me as a nurse than a patient.’’

Ash spent two days in hospital the following weeks walking with crutches.

She joked that as the Range Rover rolled towards her, her biggest worry was what her ex-footballer husband would say if the accident damaged the car.

‘‘I’d driven into something recently and just had the car mended. What was going through my mind was that I couldn’t bear Lee having a go at me for denting the car again,’’ she said.

The accident happened weeks before filming began on the new series of Where The Heart Is, and Ash had to use a stunt double for some of the more physical scenes.

Viewers will see her character, nurse Karen Buckley, in harrowing scenes as the programme makers introduce a string of gritty storylines.

Karen is the victim of an attempted rape and her secret past as a teenage prostitute is disclosed.

The series also features a guest appearance by Jean Alexander, best known as Coronation Street favourite Hilda Ogden.