A WOMAN has admitted she feels lucky to be alive after sustaining life-threatening injuries in a car crash.

Theresa Jensen, 59, was a backseat passenger in a Peugeot 206 that was involved in a collision with a Land Rover near Wimborne.

She sustained multiple fractures in the crash, including to her neck, ribs, collarbone and sternum.

Ms Jensen and the driver of the car, a woman aged in her 80s, were rushed to Southampton General Hospital with life-threatening injuries, while two other female passengers, both aged in their 80s, were taken to Poole Hospital for treatment to serious injuries.

The driver of the Land Rover Discovery, a man aged in his 40s from Hampshire, sustained a minor injury.

After four weeks in hospital, Ms Jensen last week returned to her home in Colehill in a neck brace feeling fortunate.

"We could have died," said Ms Jensen. "When I felt my bones going one by one after the impact I thought I was dying.

"I have never been in an accident like that, with such a severe impact. It was a 4x4, it is a big vehicle and we were in a small car.

"You just think it could have been so much worse. The fact we were not going any faster and he was pulling out of a side junction so not going that quickly is the only reason we survived.

"My sister visited me in Poole Hospital and said I had been very unlucky, but I thought about it and we have been very lucky."

The women in the Peugeot, who are all know each other through a curling club in Colehill, had been travelling home on Tuesday, December 10, after attending a community Christmas Lunch event organised by JP Morgan.

Ms Jensen said she could remember going along Ham Lane shortly after 7pm when there was a sudden "bang".

"All I could see was something beige coloured hit the front," the former carer said. "The windscreen was cracked and the car started to fill with smoke.

"My bones went and I just shrieked because the pain was so intense. I thought I was going to die."

Police, fire and ambulance services were called to the scene, with firefighters cutting the roof off the car to allow the passengers to be removed.

A Dorset Police spokesperson said they were called at 7.12pm to a report of a two-vehicle collision, involving a gold Land Rover Discovery and a blue Peugeot 206. No arrests have been made but the investigation is ongoing.

"The emergency services and hospital staff have saved my life," said Ms Jensen. "From the fire service who cut me out of the car, to the people that took me to hospital and all the people that looked after me at Southampton and Poole hospitals.

"It has been a month on and I am like this still. I have come to realise I am so lucky to still be alive, although that doesn't diminish the seriousness of what happened.

"It was a horrifying thing to go through. It was the impact. You are going along, there is no warning and then suddenly there is a bang.

"All that went through my head is why has this had to happened because you realise something has gone catastrophically wrong but you do not know how or why."