A young apprentice electrician involved in a horrific M50 crash got out of his car to check on the eight teenagers who smashed a stolen car into his vehicle at 100kph, his mother said yesterday.

Craig Fox, 22, was the innocent driver who suffered serious injuries when another car was driven the wrong way down a slip road of the M50 and smashed into him at 5.30 am on Sunday morning.

His mother Sara Jane Fox said her son is lucky to be alive but said she feared he may never get into a car again. She told the Neil Prendeville show on Cork’s Red FM: ‘Craig is doing well at the moment. He’s stable. He had some internal bleeding yesterday, but it stopped without surgery, which was a relief.

‘He’s sitting up talking, but he’s sore all over, which is expected. He was hit head-on at 100 kilometres an hour.

‘He walked out and had to sit down about 10 feet ahead, but he walked out of that car and checked on the others.

‘He was asking how they were. That’s the child I reared. What they’ve done is wrong. I’m not taking or minimising it. I’m not going to start placing hate and anger at them while they’re injured in the hospital.

‘I hope they make a full recovery and face the consequences of the justice system. He worked for that car. He’s an apprentice electrician, and he’s no car for work now. Is my child going to get back in the car after what’s happened?

‘He’s a kind, caring, loving young fella that’s gone working since before he left school. He got his apprenticeship off his own back. It wasn’t because who mummy or daddy knew or anything like that. He got it all off his own back. He goes to his gym. He has his girlfriend. He has his pals there. You know, normal 22-year-old young fella.’

Earlier, Ms Fox had posted on Facebook how her son was ‘lucky to be alive’ and is facing weeks out of work as well as a raft of procedures and physio to treat his serious injuries.

Extra.ie understands that the stolen car, which had been sighted around the capital prior to crashing, failed to stop for gardaí before the collision.

Fiosrú is investigating if officers were told not to engage with the stolen car after it was called in to the force’s central control centre.

Gardaí who spotted the car only had basic training, meaning they were not permitted to use lights or sirens. Gardaí are scanning phones belonging to the teens, believing they recorded parts of their joyriding before the M50 smash. One of the teenagers remains critical.