there -- after suffering horrific injuries during one of the blackest weekends on the roads this year.

Doctors performed surgery on him in the operating room he had just left.

His legs had been crushed, and head sliced open, after he was trapped between the steering wheel and seat of his van yesterday.

Last night Mr. Dill was in intensive care following an emergency operation at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

The incident was the worst of around 12 accidents between Saturday night and yesterday morning.

In one, a 19-year-old Pembroke youth miraculously escaped with minor injuries after his car rammed a wall and overturned. It happened at 4.30 a.m. at the North Shore Road/Deep Bay Lane junction, Pembroke. Two parked cars were damaged by debris from the wall.

And in another accident, a 22-year-old tourist on a cycle suffered gashes to both knees in a smash with a car. The light-coloured car drove off after the incident at the South Road/Knapton Hill junction in Smith's at 1.30 a.m.

Police are appealing for witnesses to both accidents.

"We had numerous accidents throughout the weekend,'' said Police spokesman Sgt. Peter Shaw yesterday.

"There were definitely a lot more than normal, and we were really busy. It's difficult to say why. It was just one of those things.'' Sgt. Shaw said around six accidents occurred between 11 p.m. on Saturday and 7 a.m. yesterday.

The cruel twist of fate which sent Mr. Dill back to the hospital operating room -- this time as a patient -- occurred shortly after 1 p.m.

Mr. Dill drove his KC Plumbing van into a sturdy casuarina tree at the entrance to Ducking Stool Park on North Shore Road.

He split his head open and badly injured both legs. He was last night listed in "stable'' condition.

Firemen battled for about 30 minutes to release the 39-year-old bachelor, who was conscious, but bleeding heavily.

A Fire Services spokesman said Mr. Dill was "hollering'' as the whole front of the van was cut away from his legs. An ambulance was on stand-by to rush him to hospital.

"It was not a nice scene,'' the spokesman added.

Mr. Dill's boss Mr. Keith Richardson arrived on the scene minutes after the accident occurred. He suggested his worker may have been tired from the job and heading for Ducking Stool Park to take a break.

Mr. Richardson dismissed any suggestion Mr. Dill had been drinking. He said he had been working alongside him in the hospital operating room, and Mr. Dill had left sober. "He had just knocked off at 1 p.m. when the accident occurred,'' Mr. Richardson told The Royal Gazette .

"He went back to the same doctors he was working with! He had just left the operating room!'' Mr. Richardson said his van, one of three he owns, was extensively damaged in the accident.

The roof had been severely dented, and the driving side pushed in as far as the seat. The casuarina tree suffered a few chips to its lower trunk.

Mr. Richardson said it was not the first time this year he had suffered from a road accident.

In June an out-of-control bus crashed into a Belco pole outside his North Shore Road business, narrowly missing smashing into it.

"It has not been my year,'' he commented.

Traffic on North Shore Road was held up for nearly an hour as Police had to block off the junction of Blackwatch Pass with North Shore Road and several entrances to the road further east.