A guest on The AM Show has relived the moment a drunk driver smashed into his car in Bulgaria.
Darryl Evans, chief executive of Mangere Budgeting Services, says after almost 20 years in the job, he recently took long-service leave to travel around Europe for three months.
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"[I] travelled maybe 18 countries across Europe, and I drove for a big part of it," he told The AM Show on Monday morning.
"A month ago I pulled up at a roundabout, because the cars in front had stopped, and out of nowhere a car hit me - 124 km/h is the speed on the camera," Evans said.
He says his car was shunted forward around 25 metres, hitting the car in front.
When police arrived, all the drivers at the scene were breath tested.
"We were all 0.00 [BAC] until the guy who hit me, they took him to the police station and did blood tests. He was 4.9 times over the legal limit," said Evans.
"[He] went to court recently, got a four-year ban and two years in prison."
Evans said he had seen the drunk driver earlier in the day.
"I'd actually passed him 20 minutes earlier near and airport and he was zig zagging across two lanes on his mobile phone. So he was not only drunk, he was on the mobile while he hit me."
Evans says he believes the fact that he didn't see the crash coming may have saved his life.
"I'm grateful to the man above that I didn't see it coming. Because I think when you tense up the impact would have been a million times worse.
"The car was destroyed, I was basically cut out of the windows and I couldn't get out. The frame was crushed."
Despite not suffering serious injuries, Evans said he was still affected by the crash.
"I've had bad nightmares, I've had bad headaches, really bad neck whiplash. I'm just really grateful that I was able to walk away with no real injuries."
Newshub.
