A FALMOUTH fireman saved the day after a car carrying a bridegroom and his best man to a wedding crashed and burst into flames - with the rings for the special day still inside.

Paul Parkinson managed to retrieve one of the rings from the burnt-out wreck of the car in the nick of time as the pair prepared to head off for St Stythians church at Stithians.

Firefighter Parkinson said the two men were "very, very lucky" to be alive after the accident.

"I managed to find the ring, but only the one," he said. "I really had to look hard to find it there in all the debris. I found it just as they were about to disappear off to the church.

"I tried to find the other ring but there was so much debris it was impossible."

Douglas Myers and best man Leigh Fortune, both 21, were travelling to the church when the accident happened in torrential rain at Burnthouse Corner, near Treluswell, at 1.20pm on Saturday.

They were on their way to Stithians, where Douglas was due to marry Beckie Myers, 26. Her grandparents live in the village, where she had spent many happy school holidays.

Firefighter Parkinson said: "How they slotted the car between a sign, the hedge and a tree I don't know. There was a branch broken off by a previous accident at the same site and it was protruding right into the car where the best man had been sitting. If that had hit him on the head he wouldn't have got out. And with the car catching fire we may have had a different outcome. He was very, very lucky. God must have wanted him in church that day and not up there with him."

Speaking to the Packet this week Douglas told how he was convinced he was going to die as he lost control of the car in torrential rain.

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