Briton in coma after car plunge

A British tourist is in a coma in a California hospital after spending more than 15 minutes trapped underwater in a car which lurched off a quayside and into the Pacific Ocean. Rescuers struggled to free Nigel Sims, 41, from London, from the wreckage 15 feet under the water off Santa Cruz's Municipal Wharf.

Police said it appeared that Mr Sims' companion, Kathy Hope, 48, had accidentally pressed the accelerator instead of the brake and sent their hired automatic car crashing through a safety fence into the sea. She may have been saved by the fact that she undid her seatbelt and opened her window as she drove into a car park moments before the accident on Tuesday. The couple arrived in the US on 13 June and stopped in Santa Cruz en route to Monterrey.