THE teenage son of Ribble Valley Mayor Councillor David Smith is in intensive care after being injured while on holiday in France.

The 18-year-old student, also called David, was in collision with a car as he and five friends were travelling around Brittany on scooters.

He is being treated in the intensive care unit at a hospital in Nantes where he has already undergone one operation for a broken leg. He also suffered a broken wrist and ankle in the crash.

Mr Smith, a senior teacher at Longridge High School, caught an early morning flight to France yesterday after receiving news of the accident late on Friday night.

Mayoress Mrs Lona Smith said: "When we heard about the crash on Friday you can imagine what we were going through. We were told David had been hit by a car and was in intensive care on a ventilator. He wasn't conscious. "But he has undergone one operation and regained consciousness since then, although he is still in intensive care.

"I spoke to him on Saturday night and to hear his voice, well, it was worth all the tea in China." Mrs Smith is trying to keep most of the couple's official engagements until her husband returns home. It is thought that David will undergo another operation in France which will keep him there for another week before he can be transferred home by air ambulance to the Royal Preston Hospital. The couple, who have a younger son Roger, 13, were busy visiting many events on Saturday.

Mrs Smith went on: "Whenever we have been abroad we have always told the boys never to hire one of those bikes but the remoteness of the camp site meant it was difficult for them to get around.

"The only good thing is that they went to a reputable firm who supplied them with helmets, if it hadn't been for that I wouldn't have been speaking to David again. He is a very lucky boy."

David, who has just completed the first year of a degree course in sports recreation management at Cardiff University, is a keen hockey player and surfer.

It is his first holiday abroad without his parents.

Mrs Smith, who teaches business studies an information technology at a school in Preston, added: "When I spoke to him he was very shocked and it has really knocked the others for six, too.

"I would just warn anybody who hires a motorbike abroad to make sure they get a helmet."

The couple, who live in Longridge, have been helped through the ordeal by fellow Ribble Valley councillor Stuart Reece, who teaches languages at Preston's Newman College.

Mrs Smith said: "Our French is OK when on holiday, but it was very difficult to understand medical terms so Stuart has been interpreting for us.

"France doesn't seem an awfully long way away until something like this happens and then you feel very helpless."

The rest of the group are due home on Thursday.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.