A pensioner has spoken of his 'traumatic' Christmas Eve spent stranded for four hours after the ambulance he was travelling in crashed on ice. Three elderly passengers – including two dementia patients – endured a long wait in an isolated country lane near Duloe as emergency services struggled to reach them.

The private Crusader Ambulance skidded while driving patients from Derriford Hospital to their homes, after the vehicle's satellite navigation system led the driver down a lane.

Ray Dowell, from Looe, was accompanying his wife Susan back to Hillcrest Nursing Home where she lives.

The 67-year-old, who suffers from Lewy Body Dementia, had been treated in hospital after falling and breaking her hip just days before.

'We were driving from Liskeard to Looe on the back roads, after dropping off another patient,' said Mr Dowell.

'I told the driver he should stay on the main roads because they will have been gritted but he said "I've got to stick to my sat-nav".

'It was terribly icy and as we drove up a hill we slipped back down, hit a wall and ended up in a ditch.

'The paramedics climbed out but we were stuck in the back.

'The patients – my wife and an elderly man – were dressed in pyjamas ready for bed because it was Christmas Eve.

'The man was being sick and I had to wrap him up in blankets to keep him warm.

'My wife was so confused, she was all over the place.'

The isolated location of the crash at Sowdens Bridge meant that the ambulance staff had no mobile phone signal.

One of the paramedics finally raised the alarm around an hour after the accident, after walking up the icy lane and calling 999.

For more on this story see this week's Cornish Times.