Sinking Bentley driver saved by sunroof, rescuers say

Two fishermen who saved a man from his sinking Bentley have said they would not have been able to get him out had his sunroof not been open.

Robert Hill was pulled out of the luxury car after it plunged from the Ferry Way Car Park at Sandbanks in Poole, Dorset, on Tuesday evening.

With the vehicle filling up and water reaching Mr Hill's bottom lip, Abdel Hamid Bakkali and Abdeliah Slah swam to the car and climbed on to the bonnet before dragging the 72-year-old to safety.

The pair said the "biggest luck" they had was that Mr Hill had his sunroof open otherwise they doubted they could have got him out.

People jumped into the water to help pull Robert Hill from the car before it sank

Mr Bakkali said he and Mr Slah just suddenly decided to jump in the water, "thinking about it now you think 'oh goodness, how did we do that?'"

"The biggest luck we had was he'd got the sunroof open. We would not have been be able to open the door and get him out with the water in the car.

"He is a really lucky guy. He was thanking us all the time..."

Mr Slah added: "I just said 'don't worry the Bentley will come back again but you are still alive'."

They have both since sent their best wishes to Mr Hill.

Asked afterwards by friends if they had caught anything, the pair said "no not a single fish but we got a human being".

Mr Hill's car plunged from the Ferry Way Car Park at Sandbanks

Mr Hill told the BBC he heard "a noise like a rocket going off" just before his car started to roll over the edge.

"It went down and under the water like a submarine and then rose up," he said.

Realising the electric windows were a no-go, he said he started to scramble towards the sunroof when he saw "figures in the water trying to get to me... they crawled on to the bonnet and said 'stay where you are'.

"They got hold of me and yanked me out and put me on the bonnet."

The men then rolled him into the water where they caught him and swam him back to the shore.

Mr Hill, who was taken to hospital to be checked over after the ordeal, said: "I'm alright and feeling very lucky."

Poole Harbour Commissioners thanked the men who sprang to help the driver.

A spokesperson said: "We would like to take this opportunity to commend the swift and selfless efforts of those individuals who assisted the gentleman from his car before it sank."

The port authority said it used a hydrographic survey vessel to find the car on the seabed before divers and a crane were used to pull it back to the surface.

It is not the first time a car has gone into the water at the beauty spot.

In 2014, a woman was rescued after accidentally driving her car into the water.