A woman managed to crawl from the wreckage of her mangled car yesterday – and walk to a waiting ambulance.
Paramedics said she was “lucky” not to have been seriously injured in the crash on the A862 Inverness-Beauly road.
Her Honda CRV 4X4 and a Vauxhall Insignia are thought to have collided before both vehicles left the road close to Ardfern Nursery, west of Bunchrew.
The Honda rolled and landed on its roof in a field, while the Vauxhall came to rest a few yards away.
The red 4×4 was badly damaged, with the windscreen and back side windows smashed in.
The man driving the Vauxhall was not hurt. The bonnet of his dark-coloured vehicle was damaged in the crash.
Both drivers were alone when the accident happened at 10.40am.
Two fire crews from Inverness were sent to the scene, along with a heavy rescue unit, but the drivers had managed to get out of their vehicles before firefighters arrived.
Paramedics took the woman to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness for a check up and she was released from hospital yesterday afternoon.
An ambulance spokesman said she was “lucky” not to be more badly injured.
He said: “She had minor injuries. She is quite lucky. We had a report of a two-car accident with one vehicle overturned. That normally sets off alarm bells that it could be something bad.”
Deep gouges could be seen leading from the road, on to the verge and into the field.
A police spokesman said yesterday that inquiries into the accident were ongoing.
Alasdair Sutherland, owner of the nearby Ardfern Nurseries, said it was believed the two cars were travelling in the same direction.
But he said that he did not know what happened to cause the collision.
The A862 road, known locally as the “old A9”, has been the scene of several serious and fatal crashes in recent years.
Inverness procurator fiscal Emma Knox was critically injured in a crash at nearby Lentran in December last year.
She was unconscious for four weeks in Raigmore with serious head injuries and multiple fractures.
Mina Mackenzie, 77, of Tomich Holdings, near Beauly, died in a two-car collision near Lovat Bridge in May last year.
Daniel Fraser was sentenced to 200 hours of community service and banned from driving for three years after he admitted causing the crash.
And in 2009, Danny McBean, 16, died when the car he was in went out of control, crashed into a wall and a telegraph pole. Paul Munro, 21, admitted causing Mr McBean’s death by dangerous driving in the 70mph crash and was jailed for more than three years.