'I stopped to help pedestrian hit by car... then realised it was my dying wife'

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 11:27 AM on 19th August 2008

A husband today told how he held a drip attached to the dying victim of a car crash - unaware that the woman was his wife.

James Peters stopped to help paramedics when he saw a pedestrian had been hit by a car at the spot where he usually picked up 60-year-old wife Susan.

It was only when he was passed the victim's handbag that he realised the victim was the woman he had been married to for 40 years.

Devoted couple: James Peters was just a passer-by who stopped to help at the scene of a car accident when he realised his wife, Susan, was involved

Mrs Peters's injuries were so severe that her husband, also 60, helped at the scene for almost 10 minutes before he realised what had happened to the mother of his three sons.

She had been hit by a blue Volkswagen Golf as she crossed an M25 slip road in Leatherhead, Surrey, last Friday.

The couple had celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary just two days before the crash and were finalising their plans for retirement.

Mr Peters, who is a retired businessman and a magistrate in Richmond, said they had only recently moved into a secluded £1million home in Leatherhead and had been refurbishing it.

He paid tribute to his "perfect" wife, saying: "She was the better half of me and now my better half is gone, I'm totally devastated."

He usually picked up his wife from the bus stop to save her the walk home after she finished work at Surrey county council in Kingston.

Mrs Peters was airlifted from the crash site to the Royal London Hospital where she died of her injuries.

The businessman, who ran his own firm supplying and installing central heating, kitchens and bathrooms, said he was "devastated".

Mr Peters - who is also president of Twickenham Rugby Club and a referee in the sport - said: "We only celebrated our ruby wedding anniversary days ago and now she is gone. I had just stopped to help as I saw there had been an accident.

"I parked my car, thinking that my wife's bus must have been delayed by what had happened but it must have been fractionally early.

"At virtually the same time the paramedics arrived. They were doing their best to help and I was holding a saline drip for them.

"Then another person who had stopped handed me a handbag and I recognised it. I always pick her up so she doesn't have to walk home. I couldn't believe it."

Mr Peters, who is a grandfather of four, added: "It's no reassurance to me that I was there at her final moments, there's not much reassurance anywhere, I'm devastated.

"She had been struck by a car as she crossed the road. I'm being looked after by my family but it is hard. My wife was perfect."

A close neighbour of Mr Peters, who did not wish to be named, said: "They are such a lovely couple. They were getting to that age where they could really start to enjoy what they had achieved in life."

A Surrey Police spokesman said a 25-year-old man from a nearby village was arrested after the accident and had been released on bail until November.