A pensioner who found a man crawling along a country road with gruesome injuries from a chainsaw attack has described it as something from a horror movie.

Victoria Bingham, 65, picked up a police bravery award yesterday for helping a man who had been brutally attacked in a quiet country road in Oxfordshire.

A 40-year-old man said two men demanded money, and then attacked him with a chainsaw and burned his van when he refused, near Cotswold Wildlife Park in March 2006.

By chance mother-of-two Mrs Bingham was driving past on her way to visit her father in Burford.

She said: "In the distance I saw a vehicle on fire. As I got closer I could see a man crawling along the road waving his mobile phone. I stopped and jumped out and as I reached him I could see his legs had been damaged above the knees.

"He was in agony and screaming his head off. He said he'd been attacked and his van set on fire.

"There was so much blood pumping out from his legs. It was a horrendous sight - the kind of thing you would see in a horror movie. I tried to calm him down as much as I could and fetched a rug from my car to cover his legs."

Mrs Bingham stayed with the man for about 15 minutes waiting for an ambulance, then managed to flag down a passing bus.

A nurse got off and helped stem the flow of blood from the man's legs. Police have never tracked down the two attackers and the case remains open.

Supt Andy Murray, who investigated the attack, said if Mrs Bingham had not stopped to help, the man could have died.

He added: "She chose to help a complete stranger in the middle of nowhere in a situation which could have been a danger to herself."

Mrs Bingham, of Ipswich in Suffolk picked up her Chief Constable's Commendation at a police ceremony at Drayton Manor Golf Club yesterday