A WOMAN thrown from her motorcycle on Dinmore Hill lay in agony as passing motorists ignored her desperate pleas for aid.

Wendy Newson, aged 33, from Pudleston, was left to wave down traffic on the busy A49 for at least quarter of an hour before anyone bothered to stop.

"Those 15 minutes could have meant life or death," said Wendy, who is outraged at motorists' ignorance and says at least three people saw her lying on the grass verge. She was taken to casualty at Hereford General Hospital with a suspected broken ankle, after motorist Neil Mapp from Shrewsbury saw her plight and contacted an ambulance station farther up the road at Queenswood.

Two ambulances arrived at the scene at the bottom of Dinmore Hill after the 4pm call on June 6. Wendy was treated for a severely strained ankle, a graze to her elbow and friction burn to her face.

"Of all the things that stick in my mind, it's that nobody stopped. I can't believe people's ignorance. I'm a car driver as well."

It would have been clear to any of the passing motorists that Wendy was in trouble. She was lying on her left side and was waving with her right arm, just one and a half feet from the roadside. She says the expression on her face alone would have said a lot as she was in considerable pain.

Wendy, who is a residential social worker in Ledbury, was thrown to the grass verge after colliding with the kerb. "I had a choice of going into oncoming traffic or going round. I went around the corner and as I leant over and came up to the straight I saw a Fiesta.

"Stupidly, I touched the brake, went to bank over, but hit the kerb and went up into the air and into bushes."

She wishes to say a big thank you to Mr Mapp and the ambulance crew for their kind assistance.