A SERIOUS accident involving a cyclist along the B3078 at Godshill has prompted a concerned wife to issue an appeal for witnesses.

Katrina Chiverton’s husband Gary arrived home after being knocked off his bike.

He thought he was ok, but Mrs Chiverton realised there was something terribly wrong and when she got him to hospital in Salisbury they realised he had suffered a broken neck, as well as a shoulder injury and concussion.

Now Mrs Chiverton is appealing for the people in two vehicles that stopped to help her husband to come forward, believing they might have believed him when he insisted he was all right and cycled off.

She had: “I have a horrible feeling they stopped to help and that he might have been funny with them because of the head injury. They may have thought he was drunk or something - we know that he turned down the offer of calling an ambulance at the time.

“Of course we now know he was very badly injured but he was insisting he was fine, even though I could see he clearly was not.

“That whole stretch of road is a complete and utter rat run and people speed along there all the time – it’s an awful, awful road.

“We really need to know what happened, and I would urge anyone who saw anything to get in touch with the police.”

Mr Chiverton was training for the 300-plus-mile Tour of Wessex event when the collision happened, at about 3pm on Sunday, February 2, between the car parks of Ashley Walk and Godshill Cricket Club, not far from the Fighting Cocks pub. Two 4x4 vehicles, one pulling a livestock trailer, are believed to have stopped at the scene, and were there when Mr Chiverton regained consciousness.

Mrs Chiverton, from Cranborne, said: “One minute he was cycling, the next he remembers being unclipped from his pedals.

“Even his teeth have been affected, and he’s looking at three-to-six months recovering from the broken neck, even before they operate on his shoulder. His helmet saved his life.

“This is a very busy road and as it was Sunday one would assume a lot of cyclists, walkers and motorists would have been around, especially as this was the first nice day of weather that there had been for a long time.

“Someone must have seen what happened.”

Anyone who witnessed the collision, helped Mr Chiverton or saw a vehicle towing a trailer around this time on the B3078 can contact PC Rob Ellis at Ringwood Police Station on 101.