A Dundee councillor grappled with a thief as he ran from a crashed car.
The man fled from the scene of the accident after crashing the yellow Seat Leon into a wall on a Downfield street.
Councillor Lesley Brennan told of how she saw the car “flying through the air” on Harestane Road, before trying to get the driver to wait for emergency services to arrive.
The man, yet to be found by police, stumbled out of the vehicle before running down Laird Street.
Labour councillor Ms Brennan said: “We had just been walking the dog and were on the way back in the car at the junction opposite Harestane Road.
“I saw the car fly through the air and land on the ground it all happened in a second, then it clipped the street sign. It had been about a metre in the air and hit the pole halfway up.
“It was amazing that it landed the right way up. I’d left my mobile phone but asked the man in the car behind me to ring the ambulance because I suspected the driver was badly injured.
“We went over and I was surprised the guy was trying to get out of the car, but we were asking him to stay there until an ambulance came but he got out.
“I asked him to stay because I thought he was away to collapse, but he was saying, ‘No, no, no.’ I was trying to hold on to him.
“Then he just took off I couldn’t believe it it must have been adrenaline that kept him going.”
The crash happened at 9.40am on Monday, near the junction with Strathmartine Road. The vehicle went off the road and hit a wall before careering 30-40m along the verge into the signpost.
The car had been taken from a house during the night. The driver is thought to be in his mid-twenties, between 5ft 6in and 5ft 9in, and was wearing a tracksuit.
Ms Brennan said that if it had been seconds later the car could have hit a child.
She said: “There was a young woman at the other side of the street with a girl who was three or four. They were just going to cross the road when the car came up. It is really fortunate that nobody was injured.”
A police spokeswoman said: “We are making inquiries into the theft of a yellow Seat Leon car that was stolen from an address in Gleneagles Avenue, Dundee, sometime between 10pm on Sunday June 1 and 7.30am on Monday June 2.
“The car was recovered following a road traffic collision in Harestane Road, Dundee at about 9.40am on Monday morning.
“In connection with the incident, police are keen to trace a man in his early twenties with short brown hair, who was wearing a black zip-up top with gold/silver stripes on the shoulders, grey tracksuit bottoms and white trainers.
“He was last seen in Laird Street, Dundee, shortly after the collision. Anyone who can assist police with their inquiries should contact Police Scotland on 101.
“Alternatively information can be passed anonymously via the charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.”