A schoolboy was saved by his seatbelt in a car crash that killed his identical twin, who was not wearing one.
The boys, from Lutterworth, Leicestershire - who were 16 at the time of the accident - were in the back seat of a friend’s car when it span out of control and hit another vehicle yards from the private school they attended.
At the inquest into Christopher Watson’s death, the policeman who investigated the crash said there could be no clearer demonstration of the importance of wearing seatbelts.
Inseparable: Andrew and Christopher Watson on holiday in 1999. Christopher died in his sleep last December
Christopher was thrown through the car’s windscreen and spent almost five years in a coma before his mother took the decision to switch off his life-support machine.
Coroner Nicholas Gardiner heard that Andrew Watson, who walked away from the wreckage, would often sit by his comatose brother’s bedside and spent their 18th and 21st birthdays with him.
Andrew, now a student at De Montfort University in Leicester, said it was like ‘watching myself lying there’.
Loss: Christopher Watson's mother, Helen, pictured with Andrew. She had to make a decision no parent should be faced with
Sergeant Peter Jell told Oxford Coroners’ Court: ‘This was the most unusual and tragic crash scene I have encountered.
‘You can’t get a much clearer case of the valuable nature and use of the seatbelt. Two people identical in every way possible have had astoundingly different outcomes from the same crash.’
Christopher’s family were asked by doctors in the autumn of 2008 if they had considered applying to the courts for permission to withdraw feeding and hydration. In November last year, Christopher’s mother Helen Watson made the heartbreaking decision to withdraw his feeding tube.
He died in his sleep in December, at the age of 21.
Mrs Watson, 53, said: ‘I remember the surgeons looking after Christopher saying, “There is nothing you can do here. Your place is with the living, go to your other son”.’
The inseparable twins, from Lutterworth, Leicestershire, were in their friend Alastair Godfrey’s Renault Clio in April 2006 when it span out of control and ploughed into an oncoming 4x4 on April 30, 2006.
Mr Godfrey, 19, a gardener at the twins’ school, Kingham Hill in Oxfordshire, died at the scene.
Front-seat passenger Hannah Jenkins and Andrew wore seatbelts and suffered only minor injuries, as did the driver of the 4x4.
But Christopher suffered serious head injuries from which he would never recover.
His death was recorded as an accident.
Happier times: Andrew (left) with his mum Helen and brother, Christopher on holiday
