An RAF pilot whose three-year-old daughter and unborn child were killed in a pile-up on the A34 has spoken of his trauma.

It comes as the release date approaches for the lorry driver who ploughed into the back of their stationary car at Hinksey Hill in 2016.

Flight Lieutenant Haydn Wiggin, now 36, was posted to the Falklands when the harrowing call came that his family were seriously injured.

He said: “My colleagues rallied around me, helping as much as they could. I think I only cried for five minutes with the shock.”

Crying

Calls to the JR established that his wife Collette had a broken neck and their three-year-old daughter Isla had head and neck injuries.

However, just before he boarded the flight back to RAF Brize Norton, Collette broke the news that their unborn baby had died.

He said: “In total it's an 18-hour journey. I spent two eight-hour flights crying from grief and also thinking 'Are Collette and Isla both going to die? Is my house going to be good enough for two people in a wheelchair?'.

At Brize Norton a chinook was waiting, ready to go the second the plane landed. He was met at the JR by his brother and sister and an RAF nurse he knew.

Haydn spent the day running between Collette, who had impacted the steering wheel and had had an operation to repair her septum, and Isla who was in intensive care.

The consultant finally told him he had never seen anyone with Isla’s kind of brain injury survive.

Regret

Haydn recalled: “No one had told Collette just how serious Isla’s injuries were. So, I had to go upstairs and tell her that Isla wasn’t going to make it. That was hard.”

After slowly reducing Isla’s life support a spinal surgeon removed the frame surrounding her body and Collette arrived in a wheelchair.

Haydn said: “We both held her, and the doctors turned everything off. That was it.

"I regret not holding her longer.”

Four days after Isla died and with a broken neck, Collette gave birth to stillborn Harry. Haydn said there was so much to process he barely had time to grieve the loss of the baby.

After the crash, he took four months off work supported by the RAF and members of his squadron and was able to care for his wife.

Practical

He said: “When we got home from hospital, I was very practical, and I tidied. We were going to move Isla out of the baby's room and make a big girl's room for her. We'd had her bed delivered, so I made it into the room that it was meant to be.”

For 12 weeks Collette attended the JR weekly for neck X-rays and even had the strength to return to work.

Haydn said: “Once she got the brace off we went to the Caribbean, I bought a new three-piece suite, and I bought a new TV, and I bought a new car, and I bought a new motorbike, and I just threw money at the problem.

“It's like, 'Buy stuff. Fill the void with objects that are never going to fill the void.'

Two years after the accident, the sadness eventually caught up with him and he was recommended to contact the listening service at Armed Forces charity SSAFA.

Bawled

He said: ““I arranged an appointment with the lady, Jenna, in the office. She asked, 'Why have you come to see me?'. I said, 'Other people have told me to come here. I don't think I really need to be here.' But then I sat down and told her the whole story, and I bawled my eyes out for at least an hour. It came from nowhere."

Haydn was referred to a licensed counsellor, paid for by the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund, and continued to chat to Jenna until 2018 while Collette also had counselling.

The couple, from Fleet, Hampshire, now have another little girl, Taryn, who has just turned three.

Safety calls

One-armed lorry driver Thomas Hunter, 59, was jailed for six years after admitting causing the eight-vehicle crash. He said in court he had no idea why he lost concentration.

It renewed calls for better safety measures on the A34 where motorists face regular accidents and hours-long delays.