A lorry drove over my head – but I’m ready to get back on a motorbike

A lucky UEA student escaped death after crashing his bike and sliding under the wheels of a huge lorry.

Jason Mawe was driving to college when a crash caused the 30-tonne vehicle to drive over his head in 2009.

The 25-year-old slid sideways under the oncoming lorry which crushed his arm and ripped his helmet off.

But miraculously, the photography student walked away from the crash with a broken arm and just a scratch on his head.

He said: “I don’t remember the accident itself, but it went over my arm first, hit my elbow, and then crushed my helmet when it went over my head.

“There was nothing left of my helmet.

“It was a fully laden lorry at the time and the driver said it would have weighed about 30 tonnes.

“He got out and was like ‘oh my god, I’ve run over this guy, there’s going to be nothing left’.

“But I was concious.  Apparently I was screaming and shouting and swearing.

“I do feel lucky, really lucky.”

Jason was riding his 125cc Suzuki Epicuro to college when he rounded a blind bed and crashed into a static car, in March 2009.

A shocked passer-by called an ambulance which took Jason to Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, just after his mum Jenny, 45, arrived with older brother Lee, 26.

The brave rider has now had the final operation to repair his squashed arm and is preparing to get back on his bike for the first time since the horror smash.

Medics initially feared they would have to amputate his arm, but after finding a pulse, patched it back together with three titanium pins and skin grafts from his leg during a series of operations.

Brave Jason spent three weeks in hospital and returned to college two months later.

But his arm snapped again when one of the pins failed, and he had to have some bone from his hip inserted into his upper arm a year after the accident.

He had a final operation to remove a pin from his elbow just last year.

“There was a huge gouge in the side of my arm that was so hard to pull together – it was so stretched out.  They had to take a skin graft from my inside leg.

“The bottom part of the arm was broken and the top part was really badly broken too, and my elbow was in eight pieces, but despite being run over by a lorry there was nothing wrong with my head.

“I do feel lucky, really lucky not to have lost my arm.

“There was a point where they couldn’t find a pulse for quite a while and they were in two minds about whether they should take it off or continue.”

But his crash hasn’t put Jason off the thought of bikes entirely. He said:
“I haven’t been back on a bike since, but I do miss it.

“My brother has bought himself a proper 1000cc motorbike and him and my dad are planing a trip across Europe next summer, and I would feel pretty rubbish being at home while they are doing that.

“I do fancy getting back on it now.  I just have to get my confidence back up.”