Driver who crashed onto Park Royal tracks is jewellery shop manager whose leg ‘has been amputated’

The driver of an ‘out of control’ Range Rover who smashed into a parked Tesla and ended up on the track of a London tube station after careering off the A40 at 120mph has been in a coma since the horror accident, his devastated family have told MailOnline today.

Iraqi-born jewellery store manager Rida Al Mousawi, 24, is in critical condition at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington after the super-charged 4×4 he was driving hurtled off the road at around 3.50am on Monday morning, crashed into a Tesla charging station and parked car where a 56-year-old man was sat inside – before launching over the public footpath and onto the tracks at Park Royal station.

Inside the destroyed vehicle was a 33-year-old mother of a six-year-old who died at the scene, the driver, and another female passenger, 26, who was treated for non-life threatening injuries. 

Friends earlier said that Mr Al Mousawi – who ran the Hiba Jewellery store on London’s Edgware Road where he was well known among other shopkeepers for his love of cars – had been driving the two women home after meeting them at a late-night shisha restaurant in Park Royal called the Wish Lounge. They also claimed that doctors had amputated his leg after the crash.

Speaking to MailOnline this afternoon, a family member clarified that there were early fears he would have to have his leg cut off, but that doctors had managed to save the limb. They also revealed that he is in a coma and are praying that he wakes up. 

‘I have seen Rida at hospital at St Mary’s and he has been in a coma since the accident,’ the distressed male relative added. 

Park Royal station remains part closed today as TfL engineers fix the damage to the platform, affecting the Piccadilly line’s eastbound service towards central towards central London. 

One of Mr Al Mousawi’s friends earlier said: ‘He had only recently bought the Range Rover trading in his Mercedes. The car was the most powerful version, the SVR. He told me he had got rid of the Mercedes and got the Range Rover. We did not see it as he parked it in an underground car park.

‘He is a great guy and we all knew him as he had quite an active social life. He was single.’

The large Iraqi community who work in restaurants, bakeries and money exchange shops on the Edgware Road were all aware that Mr Al Mousawi had been involved in the A40 crash. The black metal shutters at the jewellery store remained closed.

‘It is just terrible, and we knew something was wrong when he did not come to open the store,’ said a neighbouring storekeeper.

‘We heard he was involved in the crash and in a very bad way. We are all hoping he survives as he is such a nice young man.’

Another jeweller added: ‘He is a very nice person. We would always say hello and he was friendly. Everyone around here knows about the A40 crash. When you look at the photos of the car it is a miracle that he is alive.’

Hours after the crash – which closed the west bound lanes of the A40 and Piccadilly Line from Acton Town to Uxbridge – Mr Al Mousawi’s social media accounts were taken down.

Friends had claimed he underwent an operation to have one of his legs amputated and also has a head injury. 

Mr Al Mousawi, who was known to his close friends as ‘Kazim’, was born in Basra, Iraq. He has an older brother and sister and a younger sister, and his 54-year-old father Mahdi is listed on Companies House as the owner of the Hiba Jewellery.

A friend said: ‘The Wish lounge is well known hang out place for young Iraqi men. It has shisha pipes and opens late and stays open until the early hours of the morning.

‘They had a special event at the weekend and Kazim was there. He was there most of the night with his friends. He has a very active social life and is out all the time at weekends.’

Local resident Katee Moore, 30, who lives in Baronet House adjacent to the crash site, reported that she was awoken a few hours before the crash by loud engine noises from a group of cars.

‘About 2am I was woken up by the noise of cars going on for about an hour and a half. There was a Range Rover parked up watching their friend in a BMW spinning around the roundabout,’ she told the BBC.

‘Later on we heard this horrendous bang and then all of a sudden police were there. A lot of us went to put flowers down as apparently she’s a young mother with a six-year-old child.’ 

An Uber driver who witnessed the A40 crash has told how he ‘could have died’ after he initially planned to park next to the fellow driver who was injured in the incident. 

Nawaf Ali, 40, had just parked his own Tesla when the incident happened. He told MailOnline: ‘I could have died last night, and my kids would not have a father.’

The horrifying moment the Range Rover slams through metal railings was captured by a remote camera on Mr Ali’s Tesla, showing it cause significant damage to a number of charging points.

He said: ‘I had just parked up and went across to a white Tesla as I recognised the driver as someone who was also an Uber driver. We exchanged a few words, and I walked back to my car. I wanted to make sure it was charging ok.

‘Suddenly there was a noise like an aircraft crashing. It was so loud. I ducked my head down and this car came flying over the metal barrier. The noise was incredible, but then it was silent.

‘I looked around but could not see where the other car went. There was just silence. At the time I had no idea where it had ended up.

‘Where I was standing was where the car came over the barrier. If I had been standing a few feet away then I would have been hit. I am still shaking thinking about it.

‘The other car did not hit the Tesla as it was much higher coming through the railings and was in mid air.

‘It was like something out of a horror movie, only much worse. I have never seen anything like it.

‘It was like a horror movie, but only much worse. I do not want to see anything like that ever again.

‘I was meant to get some sleep, but I can’t get the image of that girl out of my mind. I had to leave my car at the scene and am waiting for the police to tell me when I can go back to collect it. They also want to take another statement.

‘I always used the A40 charging station, but I will never use it again. I just can’t face going back there.’

Mr Ali had parked his Tesla at the charging station off the A40 Western Avenue after returning from dropping a fare off in Oxford having driven from Central London.

He decided on the spur of the moment to call in at the Tesla garage next to Park Royal station to get an hour’s charge for his electric vehicle before returning to the home in Harrow, West London, he shares with his children aged 16 and 17.

He said he often used the charging base outside a Tesla showroom as it only takes an hour and is one of the fastest places closest to his home.

Father of two Nawaf said he was asked to ‘live stream’ the scene to ambulance control before paramedics arrived.

He said: ‘There was a lot of debris all over the place. I was walking around, then I saw the body of the young woman. It was awful. I did not see her at first and wasn’t sure it was a body. It was only when I got closer that I could make her out.

‘When I saw that I just ran back to my car. It was too much. I could not stand to look at it. It was like a horror movie, but only much worse. I do not want to see anything like that ever again.

Naswaf, who was uninjured but suffering from shock, said emergency crews were on the scene in a matter of minutes. After talking to police at the scene he was allowed to return home.

He said: ‘I was meant to get some sleep, but I can’t get the image of that girl out of my mind. I had to leave my car at the scene and am waiting for the police to tell me when I can go back to collect it. They also want to take another statement.

‘I always used the A40 charging station, but I will never use it again. I just can’t face going back there.’

The next of kin of the woman who died during the crash have been informed of her death. 

One resident told the MailOnline they recall hearing a ‘mini explosion’ in the early hours of yesterday morning before police were called at 3.48am to the ‘mayhem’.

Almost 10 hours after the horror crash a specialist train arrived at Park Royal station to remove the wrecked 4×4 at around 1.30pm. The mangled wreck was loaded onto an open carriage and taken away. Engineers on site hoped to re-open the westbound Piccadilly Line between Acton Bridge and Uxbridge later that day. 

Nada Alobaidi, 31, who also lives in the block of flats next to the station, said: ‘I heard a big crash. I came outside and saw a lot of police and an ambulance as well.

‘There was a lot of smoke. I didn’t see the car because it was during the night.

‘The A40 can be quite dangerous around Park Royal Station. Car accidents do sometimes happen.’

Officers said the Piccadilly Line and the A40 would stay closed for a ‘considerable period of time’ as they placed a cordon around the scene. 

Officers await formal identification of the fatality and confirmation that next of kin have been informed.

A police source told the MailOnline: ‘The Tesla was parked off the road when it was hit by the other car that careered off the A40. 

‘Unless there was some catastrophic mechanical failure we will be looking if drink was somehow involved.

‘The Tesla was not on the road and the Range Rover came at speed and crashed through a metal barrier and into the stationary vehicle.’

Another police source said that the Range Rover crashed through the Tesla garage and into Park Royal station.

They said: ‘The Tesla was stationary. The other car crashed into the Tesla garage and flipped into the station, landing on the tracks.’

The western section of the A40 – one of the main routes out of central London – remains closed to all traffic. 

Local resident Mr Wood told the MailOnline how he was woken by a ‘mini explosion’ as the Range Rover careered off the road and on to the underground tracks. 

The 61-year-old said: ‘There was a huge bang, like a mini explosion. Then it was silent for a few seconds and all you could hear was a car alarm going off. 

‘I came out of my flat to see what had happened but assumed it was a collision in one of the roads nearby. I didn’t look at the track. A few minutes later all you could hear were sirens and a police helicopter overhead. It was mayhem.’ 

Mr Wood said the only way for the 4×4 to have ended up on the track was by becoming airborne and going over the flat roof of the waiting room at Park Royal underground station.

Photos taken at the scene from a roof overlooking the wreckage show a break in a metal fence alongside the platform. The shattered remains of a charging point can be seen about 60 metres away from the track.

The wrecked white Tesla, which had its rear passenger side badly damaged in the collision, was later seen being loaded onto a flat bed truck and taken away from the scene of the crash.

Another resident in a nearby block of flats said she was woken by the sound of sirens as emergency services converged on the scene.

One woman, whose flat overlooks the A40, told the MailOnline:’ We didn’t hear the crash, but then we were woken by all the sirens. 

‘When I looked out the window all you could see were blue flashing lights. It was quite scary.’

Nader Nemer, 34, also from the block of flats, told MyLondon: ‘We were sleeping when we heard lots of fire engines and helicopters. My wife woke me up but I couldn’t see what happened.’

He added: ‘I usually take my one-and-a-half-year-old son to watch the cars from that road and we stand near to where the accident happened. We last did it just yesterday.

‘Thank god we weren’t there this morning, it could have been so much worse. My wife has told me to never take our son there again. It’s honestly very scary. I wish I could do something about it. It’s so sad that woman died.’

Kamila Elmi said: ‘I didn’t know anything had happened, I always walk down there to go the gym, it could have been much worse. This is our area. Now it scares me.’ 

In a statement the Met Police said: ‘Police were called to a collision on the A40 westbound near Park Royal Underground Station at 03.48hrs on Monday, 22 August.

‘Officers attended along with ambulance colleagues. It was reported that two cars, a Range Rover and a Tesla, had been involved in a collision and the Range Rover had left the road and gone onto the railway line. It is believed that the Tesla was stationary at the time.

‘Despite the efforts of emergency services, a woman aged in her 20s – believed to have been a passenger in the Range Rover – died at the scene. Officers await formal identification and confirmation that next of kin have been informed.

‘The Ranger Rover driver, a man in his 20s, has been taken to hospital where his condition is critical. The condition of a second Range Rover passenger, a woman in her 20s, is not life-threatening,

‘A man, aged in his 50s, who is believed to have been with the stationary Tesla, was treated for injuries that have been assessed as non life-threatening. 

‘Cordons were put in place following the collision and the Piccadilly Line was part suspended.’

A spokesperson for London Ambulance Service later clarified to the MailOnline that the two people injured in the Land Rover are being treated in hospital for serious injuries while the man in the Tesla was not as seriously hurt in the crash. 

A spokesman from Transport for London said: ‘In terms of impact on the network, the A40 Western Avenue is closed westbound at the junction the A4000 Wales Farm Road (Gypsy Corner), the Piccadilly line has no service between Acton Town and Uxbridge and two bus routes are on diversion.’ 

The manager of London Underground and travel services in the capital also told the MailOnline that the Land Rover was not hit by a train as there was no rail services running at that time and no engineering works happening on the tracks either. 

A spokeswoman from the Rail Accident Investigation Branches also told the MailOnline: ‘The incident has been notified to the Rail Accident Investigation Branch. 

‘Having reviewed the circumstances, there is no indication that further RAIB involvement would lead to new safety recommendations.

‘It happened when no trains were running so we can confirm that the road vehicle was not struck by a train.’ 

It follows the travel problems suffered by rail passengers after tens of thousands of workers went on strike again in a long running dispute over pay, jobs and conditions.

Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT), the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) and Unite walked out for 24 hours on Saturday, affecting Network Rail and a number of train companies across the country.

Did you witness the crash? Email tips@dailymail.com or jack.wright@mailonline.co.uk