A DAUGHTER has spoken about the moment she found her dad crushed by his own car at home in Malvern.

John Holder’s last words to his daughter Pauline were: “Help me. My tummy hurts” before he fell unconscious with his head still resting on the driver’s seat of the car which had rolled down the driveway and crashed into a garden fence.

The 79-year-old, of Leigh Sinton Road, later died at Worcestershire Royal Hos-pital from chest injuries, an inquest in Stourport-on-Severn was told yesterday.

Miss Holder said she had gone shopping with her father at Lidl in Malvern Link on the morning of Friday, July 24.

She said Mr Holder, a retired driver and a former member of the Royal Navy, had left the car on the sloping driveway of his home in a position ready to be reversed into the garage.

She said they had both done some gardening on what was a pleasant day and ate lunch before Mr Holder, unbeknown to her, went outside at about 1.15pm to put the car in the garage.

Miss Holder said: “The television was on so I thought he was watching that and then all of a sudden I heard this great big thud.”

Miss Holder, who said she had not heard the engine of the car being started, ran outside to see what had happened.

There, she saw her father’s slippers were scattered on the driveway.

She said: “I could see he was squeezed between the fence and the car. He just said: ‘Help me. My tummy hurts’.”

Miss Holder said she got a neighbour to stay with her father, a widower, while she called for the emergency services. An ambulance arrived within three minutes.

Miss Holder, who cannot drive, said she thought the handbrake of the car was not on properly when her dad went to get into the vehicle. West Mercia Police vehicle investigator Robert Beales found there was no mechanical defect with the car that could have contributed to the accident.

Dr Terry Jones, who carried out the post mortem examination, said there were no traces of alcohol or drugs in Mr Holder’s blood and that traces of heart disease did not play a part in his death.

Worcestershire coroner Geraint Williams recorded a verdict of accidental death.