A local soccer player and a friend are fighting for their lives at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital this morning following what police services are calling a ?freakish accident?.

Randall ?Randy? Swan was travelling east in a grey Renault Clio in Southampton near the Southampton Rangers Club at about 1 a.m. yesterday when the driver lost control on a corner and hit a Peugeot station wagon travelling west.

Fire Service spokesman Lt. Dana Lovell said rescuers struggled to release the injured 26-year-old driver from the Clio and had to resort to using a Holmatro device to remove the roof of the car.

?About ten minutes into the rescue of the driver, the rescuers noticed another man pinned beneath him. He was lying horizontally beneath the driver under the dashboard,? he said.

Lieutenant Lovell said the impact between the two cars had been so severe that the front seats of the Clio had literally collapsed.

The driver was lying with half of his body across the passenger side and the other half pinned beneath the steering wheel.

He described how rescuers were in the process of removing the driver when they realised that another man, a 24-year-old, was pinned beneath him, also horizontal and flat against the floor of the little car. Both driver and passenger were unconscious.

Two ambulances were called to the scene and both men were rushed to hospital and admitted to the Intensive Care Unit.

It could not be confirmed who was the driver, or the passenger in the accident. They are in critical condition.

Meanwhile the driver of the Peugeot, a 25-year-old Southampton man, was taken to hospital with head injuries, but was released later.

Police are investigating and appeal to any witnesses to place contact P.c. Karema Flood at 295-0011.