MY windscreen is smashed and I am slumped over the steering wheel - unable to move. I hear voices and someone carefully climbs into the seat beside me and asks my name.

Everything's going to be OK.

If this had been a real accident the impact might have left me with injuries too horrible to imagine.

But this, thankfully, is a training exercise at Broughton Fire Station that was set up to show me, as closely as possible, what happens in a car crash.

It may only be an exercise, but it all suddenly feels frighteningly real. "Are you injured?" my rescuer asks. "How did the accident happen?"

I am fitted with an oxygen mask and neck brace as a second firefighter supports my head to protect my spine.

Breathing

Mark checks my breathing then my pulse, which is more than 100 beats per minute.

His words are constantly reassuring. He explains what is going on around me.

Outside are seven other firefighters getting ready to start cutting the car open.

I am covered with protective plastic sheets to make sure the glass stays off my face.

The noise is tremendous as the White Watch crew cut away two of the metal posts that hold up the car's roof and peel the entire roof forward like a sardine tin lid.

They slide me gently out on a spinal board. I can see clouds in a blue sky and feel an enormous sense of relief that I can go back to the office instead of into an ambulance.

As I drive back to work, I have a new sense of caution on the road. Being slumped over the steering wheel is somewhere I never want to be again.