Ed the Dog: The band looking for the 'hero' who helped after a car crash

"When the car started flipping over, I thought: 'Right, this is the moment I'm about to die.'"

As it turned out, Charlie Lashmar didn't die. He ended up stood, shivering in a shirt, next to the wreck of his car on the side of the A1 in County Durham.

It was New Year's Day, 2017, it was snowing, and after the accident Charlie was helped out by a man he's never properly been able to say "thank you" to.

And that's something he hopes to change.

Thank You Buddy - the new single from Charlie's band, Ed the Dog - is his attempt to find the "hero" who stopped, checked he was okay, and gave him a jumper.

"The guy had traffic cones, he had high-vis jackets," Charlie tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.

"He set up the scene and was helping everyone involved in the crash before the police even got there."

The crash started, Charlie explains, when he was on his way back to Liverpool from a party in Newcastle. The weather turned and cars in front of him started skidding on ice.

"I was trying to slow down because obviously I didn't want to hit them and as soon as my car started spinning I knew it was going to be a bad crash," he says.

"I was going 50 - maybe 60 - miles per hour and I just remember trying to avoid other cars - but it's hard when you're driving over ice.

"And when my car started flipping I was like: 'Goodbye world!'"

Although his car ended up upside down in a ditch by the road, Charlie walked away without a scratch on him.

Charlie was, however, cold and confused - and that's why he's so grateful to the stranger who gave him a jumper and a packet of mints.

"He was just one of those guys who's prepared for any situation.

"He even gave me his number because he wanted me to text him when I was home safe - but when I looked at my phone the next day I realised it was missing a digit."

Charlie (l) and Ed (c) playing a BBC Radio 1 session at Maida Vale Studios in London

Ed the Dog, the brainchild of High Wycombe's Ed Wetenhall, have had radio play on stations including Radio 1 and 6Music - and made their Glastonbury debut last year.

Thank You Buddy, Ed says, was written by him and Charlie together.

"All the stuff on our last album was very introspective and all about me, me, me - about my life and what I've done," Ed tells Newsbeat.

"And then Charlie just had this absolutely amazing story that opened this whole world of ideas for me.

"From my perspective, it's about being able to perform someone else's experience and try and inhabit it for a little bit."

If you listen carefully over the song's outro, you can hear Charlie saying thanks to the stranger who helped him out.

'I'd like to keep the jumper'

"Just in case we do never actually get find this guy and track him down, at least we've got Charlie saying cheers on tape," Ed says.

"I'd like to find him - but I'd like to keep his jumper if possible", laughs Charlie, "It's really nice.

"I don't know where it's from but it's just it's a proper dad jumper - when it's cold in the house it keeps you warm.

"So not only did he look after me after the crash, he's looked after me on every cold day since."

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