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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Entertainment
Katie Fitzpatrick

TOWIE star Yazmin Oukhellou 'snapped her arm' to free herself from fatal car crash that killed her boyfriend

The Only Way Is Essex star Yazmin Oukhellou has recalled snapping her own arm in order to to free herself after horror 70ft cliff plunge car crash that killed her boyfriend Jake McLean. Jazmin, 28, had spontaneously flown to Turkey to reconcile with her on-off boyfriend and "things were perfect" before the accident happened.

She had nodded off in the car after partying with friends in Bodrum and woke to find the Mercedes plunging off a cliff. Jazmin told the Sun: “We were just tumbling for what seemed like forever. It felt like I was going round in a washing machine, just round and round.

“Then eventually it stopped and my right arm was jammed. The car was upside down. It had an open sunroof and my right arm was just stuck behind my back and under the folded back of the car roof."

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The reality star revealed she had severed an artery in her arm during the crash. Through 'adrenaline and panic' she managed to snap her arm so that she could go and reach help.

She said: “I could just felt my arm absolutely covered in blood. It was like I was lying in a hot bath, there was so much around me. At the same time I was trying to wake up Jake. I didn’t want to admit it to myself that he could be dead.

Yazmin Oukhellou attending the National Television Awards 2019 (PA)

“So I thought ‘right, I can either lay still and bleed to death, or snap my own arm to try to save us, I had no choice. So I somehow snapped my arm through pure adrenaline and panic.

"I climbed out of the car, and I was kind of holding my arm together with my left hand. I ran up to the top of the bank, I was screaming for help and then all of a sudden I saw a flashlight.”

A dog walker came to her aid and the man took off his top and wrapped it around her arm. "I climbed back down and tried to check his pulse but I couldn’t feel anything and then the ambulance came," she recalled.

“They were helping me. I was like 'please can you just help him’ and they were like 'we just need to take him to another hospital.' I think they knew, but for me even now I still feel like it’s not real. I still feel like I’m just waiting to wake up from a nightmare and it’s just something that never happens."

Oukhellou explained she had spent the night at a club with friends in the tourist resort of Bodrum before the couple had decided to drive to a friend’s villa “high up in the mountains”.

Jazmin, who joined TOWIE in 2017, was told by a doctor that she probably wouldn't have survived the crash if she hadn't been asleep because her body was more relaxed. "I severed an artery and a nerve, that’s why I bled so much. The doctors called me an angel, a miracle, because it’s a notorious spot and people have never survived," she said.

She added: "Now I’m just wondering how the hell did my partner die while I’ve survived? It’s made me look at life totally differently. I am definitely going to need therapy for a while, and I’m going to try some in-patient treatment too. I know this will live with me forever, I need to take it slowly.”

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