The owner of A4 Stationers in Chippenham Market Place has spoken about the moment a car ploughed into the front of her shop.

Jenny Donkin, who owns the store with husband Phil, was working facing the window when a Rover 213se rammed through a bollard and crashed into the shop at 3pm on Monday.

Police believe the 81-year-old driver made his way onto the pedestrianised street from Borough Parade car park, travelling along River Street between Burtons and the Hearing Company.

There were no customers in the stationers at the time, but police confirmed passer-by Natalie Brown was hit by the car as it headed down River Street.

She suffered a fracture to her right arm and ligament damage to her left hand. She was discharged from hospital after treatment.

Mrs Donkin said: “It is a miracle nobody was more seriously hurt.

“He came towards the shop at such a speed. I truly believe that if he had not hit the bollard, which slowed him down, he would have come straight through the window.”

The driver, whose name has not been released by police, was airlifted to Bath’s Royal United Hospital by the Great Western air ambulance and was later transferred to Frenchay Hospital in Bristol.

He remains in Frenchay where he is being treated for a broken neck, broken ribs and other injuries.

Mrs Donkin said: “I saw the car driving at an incredible speed towards the shop, and I just turned and ran into the back room.

“Then I heard an almighty crash. When I turned around, the car had bounced off the front of the shop and gone back into the street.

“I saw that the man was conscious, but I couldn’t get out of the shop to go to him as the door had jammed because the building has buckled. It is an absolute miracle that he didn’t hit anybody else. There were so many people around doing their shopping. It’s so lucky no one else was hurt.”

A damage control unit from Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service was sent to the scene to check the safety of the shop and firefighters worked to shore up the building.

Mrs Donkin said: “There was glass all over the place, and the shock from the collision was so great that our photocopier was thrown away from the wall.”

Her husband added: “We are hoping that we will be able to open the shop on Monday, and we’ll be working at about 80 per cent of our usual service.

“We imagine it will take about three months to get everything fully operational again.”

The couple, who also own a shop in Malmesbury, said they had heard the car driver might have had a heart attack, but didn’t know if this had occurred before or after the collision.

An area of Market Place was closed off to vehicles and pedestrians for four hours and the Great Western air ambulance landed in the bus station to ferry the injured man to hospital.

Police are now piecing together the movements of the driver before he crashed.

A spokesman said he was involved in a minor collision with a silver Vauxhall Vectra in the Borough Parade car park before travelling down River Street, where he hit Mrs Brown.

Anyone with information about the crash should contact PC Fair at the Serious Collision Investigation Team at Amesbury Police Station on 0845 408 7000, or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Chippenham Town Beat Manager Ashleigh Jones said: “This could have been a lot worse than it seems to have been.

“We are still unsure how it happened. Firefighters are securing the building to make sure it’s safe, but we need to find out how the gentleman crashed into the building in the first place.”