A FATHER and daughter said they felt lucky to escape without serious injuries after getting caught in the middle of Saturday’s “horrendous” crash.

Neil Crowder, 51, and daughter Jemma, 30, were on their way to Banbury to buy a Valentine’s Day present for her partner Christopher Smith.

Mr Crowder, who lives with wife Lisa in Kennington, said: “It was foggy on the way to the M40 but you could still see quite clearly.

“But not long after joining the road the fog just dropped and you couldn’t see anything. It was like somebody had put a sheet in front of you.

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“All I could do was brake but it was too late. I couldn’t have done anything else.”

Their car went into a Ford Focus, then he said: “It was just bang after bang, with all of the cars going into the back of us.

“You could hear all of the horns and alarms going off.

“My daughter was crying and wanted to get out but I told her not to.”

Eventually, he said, they got out of the car and drivers and passengers started trying to help each other.

Mr Crowder, a dustcart driver for Oxford City Council, said: “There were so many people there.

“It was horrible seeing people injured, especially children.

“There was a young boy who was going to a Judo competition who had cut his eye and there was a family who were supposed to be going to their daughters’ wedding in Sheffield. They had the wedding cake in their car and it was all intact but sadly they couldn’t get to the wedding.”

The Crowders were taken with others to an emergency recovery centre set up in nearby Ardley.

He added: “The whole thing was a shock but we were lucky to escape injury.”

Miss Crowder, who lives with partner in Cowley, said she was “amazed” people walked away from the crash.

She said: “The fog was just like a blanket had been dropped in front of us.

“We hit the side of a car then two cars went into the back of us then a lorry into the back of them.

“It felt like it went on forever.”

After they managed to get out of their car, the mother-of-three said she felt helpless looking around the wreckage.

She said: “I can’t get the images of the children injured out of my head. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to help but I couldn’t.

“You never believe it could happen to you. People were running around with blood on their faces, I’m amazed that people walked away from it.”

She said it was a “miracle” no one else was killed, and added: “I feel so lucky and I’m looking at life in a completely different way.

“Thirty seconds earlier and we could have been seriously injured.”

Lorry driver Colin Roberts arrived at the scene just after the cars collided.

He slammed on his brakes, managing to squeeze his lorry between a car and the hard shoulder and stop, but then as he dialled 999, he said a 44-foot lorry went into the back of him at about 40mph pushing him forwards about six feet.

The 56-year-old, who lives in France, said: “It was complete carnage but the fog was completely dense, you couldn’t see anything.”

He said at the top of a slip road onto the M40 it had been sunny, and by the time he reached the bottom he was in a “blanket of fog”.

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