A Skye woman had just started walking to safety when she was killed by a rally car near Inverness, her son revealed at an inquiry yesterday.
Dean Robson said that he and his mother, Joy Robson, had decided to move because the spot they were standing in at the Snowman Rally was becoming “dangerous”.
But within a “split second” the car had left the track at a hairpin bend in Lochletter Woods, Balnain, causing the death of the 51-year-old nursery assistant from Portree in February 2013.
A joint fatal accident inquiry is examining the circumstances surrounding her death and the deaths of three other motor sport fans at the Jim Clark Rally in the Borders.
Giving evidence at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, Mr Robson said: “We thought the position we were standing in was no longer safe as cars were coming down the hill and coming closer and closer.
“We made the decision at that time to move, but unfortunately it was too late.
Mr Robson added: “I had already started walking away from where my mother had got hit by the car. We were moving.
“It was only a split-second. She would have been behind me. I thought she was following me.
“I could hear trees crunching, screams and shouts. I looked to see where my mother was, and saw that my mother was on the floor. There was a tree hanging over her.”
Mr Robson told the inquiry others helped him lift the tree off his mother and said he felt it was a “long time” before paramedics arrived.
He said: “She was in and out of consciousness, screaming and shouting and then passing out.”
Mr Robson said his mother was taken to an ambulance and was successfully resuscitated two or three time before a fourth attempt failed and a doctor informed him she had died.
The inquiry also heard from a 44-year-old Inverness man whose eight-year-old son was pinned under the car.
“I threw my daughter into the gorse bushes to the left. By the time I turned back round the car had dropped,” he said.
“The passenger side of the car was literally centimetres from me standing still. When I looked down I could see my son with his head and shoulders under the car.
“His body and legs were sticking out away from the car and he was underneath. He was face down. I shouted for help.”
The inquiry heard the boy was taken to Raigmore Hospital but has since made a full recovery.