Teen amputee and first aider's bond after crash

A teenager who lost his leg in a motorbike crash and the passerby who gave him first aid say they are now friends for life.

Ted, 17, was involved in a crash when he was driving home from his pub job along the A27 near Selmeston, East Sussex.

Sainsbury's worker Jayme Guthrie, 21, who was one of the first people on the scene on 15 December, spoke to the ambulance on the phone and rang Ted's mum Sasha.

Ted, who lives near Hailsham, spent nearly a month in the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and had to have his left leg amputated up to the knee before returning home on 10 January.

Ted, his family, and Jayme, from Eastbourne, said they now had a bond for life after the crash.

"I remember the crash, I was thrown across the road and I just remember lots of pain in my leg. You start to feel a bit sick and want to pass out," Ted told BBC Radio Sussex.

"I had Jayme talking to me and I was focusing on my parents and told her their numbers so she could call them. Everything almost slowed down when the crash happened."

Ted's mother Sasha, 50, was at home when she received the call from Jayme.

She said: "Jayme said she was with my son who had been in an accident. She answered all the questions I wanted to ask before I got the chance to ask which really helped. She said he was awake and okay.

"I took comfort in the fact he was awake."

Jayme said: "I saw the bike scatter across the road, I pulled my car onto the bank and ran over without a second thought. My body moved and my brain followed it.

"When he said he was 17, my heart just dropped because I thought 'you're just a kid'. I kept talking to him and called his mum for him.

"He looked up at me when the paramedics arrived and gave me a little wave and smile. The one thing that stuck with me was his absolute bravery and how focused he was able to be."

Jayme is running Worthing Half Marathon on 4 May, and some of the proceeds from a fundraiser she has organised will go to a charity of Ted's choice.

He said he wants to support a charity that helps provide people with prosthetic limbs in developing countries.

"On New Year's Eve I visited Ted and his family in the intensive care unit, I said to them at the hospital that I feel tethered to Ted in some way," Jayme added.

"There will always be a relationship there with him and his family. It just goes to show in moments of need, people you don't know can band together."

Asked whether the incident has made them friends for life, Jayme said: "I say this to Ted all the time, he's stuck with me now!"

Ted said he wanted to go skydiving and take a motorbike trip with his father in the future.

He added: "It's not the end of the world if something like this happens, don't let fear control you. I'm still here, I'm still with my family."

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