A funeral procession has experienced a setback after a car ran straight into the funeral cottage,instantly killing the horse pulling the coffin.
The scene of the accident
A grieving family was left devastated after a car smashed into a great-grandmother's horse-drawn funeral cortege and killed one of the animals, a horse.
Daily Mail reports that the dead woman, Elizabeth Morris' coffin was being taken to the crematorium in Bridgend, South Wales, when a Renault Scenic attempted to overtake the cortege and careered into the side.
The 74-year-old's bereft family then watched in horror as the carriage driver Mark Evans, 58, was thrown from the vehicle. The horse, Will, was also knocked to the ground in the smash and later had to be put down due to serious injuries.
Mrs Morris's granddaughter Kirsty Thomas has now described how the family was left 'devastated' by the 'chaos' that followed the crash.
The beloved grandmother died from lung cancer and her family were carrying out her dying wish of having a horse take her to the ceremony.
The 31-year-old said: 'I've never seen anything like it. The horses were thrown up in the air and the driver was thrown like a rag doll too.
'It just turned into total chaos. People were running around and had no idea what had happened.'
Ms Thomas said her first instinct was to race over to her grandmother.
'I knew she was already dead but I just wanted to know she was okay,' she said.
'This was supposed to be our last memory of her and it was just devastating how it turned out. Nobody knew what to do. It felt like the whole funeral was sabotaged.'
She added: 'She planned this funeral herself two years ago and up until this point it was beautiful. Seeing this felt as bad as the day she actually passed away.'
More than 20 cars were following the cortège from Mrs Morris's home in the village of Sarn when the crash took place on Tuesday morning.
According to witnesses, the car was attempting to overtake the carriage.
Since upsetting photographs emerged of Will lying injured in the road, thousands of people have shared them on social media and started using the hashtag #justiceforwill to pay tribute to the animal.