Mark Hayes is asking for people who knew his dad to reach out to him
Mark Hayes with his son Michael
The son of a man who was impaled on the M53 after being involved in a crash with a HGV is appealing to anyone who knew his dad so ‘he isn’t forgotten’.
Mark Hayes was a passenger in a flatbed truck which was travelling just outside of Chester when a HGV driver veered off the motorway and onto the embankment in May, 1989.
As he tried to steer the lorry back onto the carriageway he hit 40-50 yards of fencing and as a result two long planks of timber flew into the flatbed truck Mark, from Ellesmere Port, was a passenger in and he was impaled. First on the scene was the ambulance service, arriving six minutes after the first call, shortly followed by fire engines.
It took an hour to rescue Mark from the cabin of the truck and he had to be cut from the vehicle. Emergency services also had to remove either end of both the planks of timber. The then-26-year-old was in surgery for seven hours as surgeons dealt with the injuries, which included ruptured ribs and diaphragm and damage to his lung, spleen, pancreas, small bowel and large bowel.
The driver of the HGV admitted reckless driving and driving with excess alcohol before being jailed for six months and banned from driving for three years.
Mark, against all the odds, recovered from the crash and spoke to BBC’s 999 following a reconstruction of the incident. He said in 1992: “When I came round in the cab and I realised we’d crashed but I didn’t know what the extent was.
“I went to get up but I couldn’t move, but I could just see these two stakes sticking out my stomach and I just went mad. I just screamed, the pain was so intense it was unreal I went into shock, I couldn’t feel anything and I went tired, I just wanted to go to sleep.”
Mark Hayes who was impaled on the M53
At the time, his daughter Ashleigh was just a few weeks old and his wife, Sue, was waiting for him at home. He said: “I went into an out of body experience and the next thing I can remember I was walking across the field and I was walking away from the scene of the accident and I think I was going home to be honest with you. I was just thinking again about saving Ashleigh, how are they going to find out and who’s going to mind Ashleigh while Sue goes to hospital.
“I could see me on the seat of the wagon and I said ‘oh, is that me?’. Then I turned around again and the next thing I can remember I was back in the cab and the fire brigade were trying to cut the wood.”
As a result of the serious injuries he suffered in the crash, doctors feared he wouldn’t be able to have any more children but he proved medical experts wrong when he and Sue miraculously welcomed their son Michael into the world.
After Michael was born, Mark asked paramedic Dave Owen, who was first on the scene and who helped save his life to be Michael’s godfather, who he is still in touch with to this day.
Speaking about Mark Dave wrote on social media: “I only got to know Mark after his accident, we became firm friends and kept in constant touch until I moved up north although, when I travelled back to the Port we always found time to meet up.
“What I remember most was his determination to survive, even though I fully expected him to die in my arms on that motorway. He asked me many times if he was going to die, in my head I thought yes, in my heart I said no and told him so.”
Sadly in 2004 Mark died from cancer. Michael said the time he had with his dad were some of “the happiest years of his life” and he was lucky to have had those years with him as he “should have died in the accident”.
Mark Hayes with fireman Geoff Roberts and paramedic Dave Owen who attended the crash – pictured at the set of BBC’s reconstruction
Now more than two decades on from the horrific crash Michael is searching for people who knew him, so he can pass stories down to his own son. His post on an Ellesmere Port Facebook group resulted in more than 100 comments and countless messages from people who knew his dad.
Michael, who now lives in North Wales with his husband and son, said: “I couldn’t get over how many people have commented. I put the post up at like 2am and I was getting comments at two or three o’clock in the morning and I woke up to my phone blowing up.
“Back in the day there wasn’t really internet and we only have newspaper clippings. I’m big into my family history and I’ve struggled quite hard to find any history on my dad’s side of the family and I don’t want my dad to be forgotten. I remember my dad’s funeral when I was 12 and the church was full, it was packed, and obviously I’ve lost contact with all of those people. My mum can only tell me so many stories, I want to know what he was like when he was younger, before he met my mum. What did he like?”
Michael’s post can be found in the Facebook group Pride in the Port and people who knew Mark are invited to reach out through the social media platform.