THE father of a baby hospitalised after having been hurled into the road when a Range Rover hit his buggy is calling for drivers to be more vigilant. Three-month-old Aleister Dougan and brother Sam, 2, were being pushed by their mother along La Route des Blanches and La Route de Jerbourg at around 2.40pm on Friday when the 4×4 ploughed into them.

The head-on collision caused Aleister, who was in a car seat which clipped into the buggy frame, to be thrown into the middle of the road while still in the seat.

After being taken to hospital by ambulance with mother Millie, he had a CT scan which discovered that he was suffering from swelling between the brain and centre of the skull.

Mother and baby were kept in under observation.

Sam, who had been standing up on the pram, was attended to in A&E, having suffered cuts and bruises to his head, body and face.

‘Sam looked frightening – his face was covered in dried blood,’ said the children’s father, Tony.

‘But he’s a trooper and he’s looking a lot better now,’ he said.

The collision had thrown Mrs Dougan to the side of the road, Mr Dougan said, causing her to suffer a number of scratches.

She had been in a state of shock after the incident, said Mr Dougan, but had managed to call out to a neighbour who was passing by in a vehicle shortly afterwards who stopped to assist.

‘I don’t understand how you can drive into a woman pushing a buggy,’ said Mr Dougan.

‘It was broad daylight at that time on Friday,’ he said. ‘It’s a busy road, a pretty dangerous road.

‘My issue is with people driving vehicles that are more suited to expeditions in Patagonia than driving in Guernsey. And it seems to me that the driver of this car was a menace.’

Sam was recovering at the family’s Le Courtillet home with Mr Dougan and sister Lauren, 8, on Saturday, waiting for Mrs Dougan and Aleister to return home.

‘I’ve never seen so many vehicles as I have in Guernsey. Drivers need to take more care,’ said Mr Dougan, who most often cycles to his job as head of the Safeguarder Service, which represents the interests of children in public and private legal proceedings.

The family moved to the island from Cumbria two months ago because of his job.

He said that while in general people were courteous on Guernsey’s roads, there were too many vehicles.

The family, said Mr Dougan, hardly ever used their car.

When the incident occurred, Mrs Dougan was walking with her sons to collect her daughter from St Martin’s Primary School.

But despite praising the pram’s build, Mr Dougan said he understood it had been ‘obliterated’ as a result of the smash.

‘If Aleister had been in a standard buggy he’d have been killed,’ said Mr Dougan. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

He said he wanted to thank the medical staff and the man who had assisted in caring for the children and in taking them to hospital in the ambulance.

‘I’d also recommend that everyone take out ambulance subscription,’ he said. ‘We certainly will be.’

n A police spokesman said that they were appealing for information and for anyone who witnessed the incident to come forward.

They would also like to speak to the man who assisted in caring for the children and the drivers of two vehicles believed to have been behind the Range Rover at the time of the collision.

One had an English registration and the driver spoke to the people involved.