AN off-duty York firefighter and emergency nurse kept a seriously ill crash victim alive until paramedics arrived to take him to hospital.

Police said the 76-year-old local man’s Citroen car hit an electronic sign at the side of York Road in Haxby at 5.40pm on Wednesday. His passenger, a 74-year-old woman, was also taken to hospital but later released.

Jamie Robinson, 30, a firefighter from Huntington, said he came across the scene in his car, shortly after the crash.

He said: “Unfortunately, the man wasn’t conscious at this stage. A passing A&E nurse out walking her dog at the time was also at the scene. She started chest compressions and I did mouth-to-mouth and he came round.

“He was conscious for a while but then lost consciousness again. The paramedics arrived and they used a defibrillator and managed to get a rhythm so they put him on a spinal board and took him to hospital.”

Mr Robinson said: “I have never actually had to perform CPR on a real person. People don’t know what’s going on so they just stand around but I had to just get on with it.”

Yesterday, a police spokesman said the man was in a “critical but stable” condition in York Hospital. The hospital said the passing A&E nurse was Debbie Boyes.

A spokesman for North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service confirmed an off-duty officer had discovered the man “unconscious and in a critical condition”.

Anyone who saw the accident or saw the car shortly before the crash to phone police on 101 or email daniel.hughes@northyorkshire.pnn.police.uk, quoting reference number 12130069272.