A DRIVER died after losing control of her car in a hailstorm and flipping into a ditch.

Brianna Cambridge, 21, was on her way to work at Gatwick on January 11 this year when she crashed near the Dale Hill Texaco garage on the northbound A23 at 4am.

Coroner for West Sussex Mr David Skipp recorded a verdict of death as a result of road traffic collision and concluded that no other driver was involved in the crash.

He described Brianna, of Chyngton Gardens, Seaford, as a "larger than life young woman who loved her job, loved life, who was valued at work and made her family proud.”

The inquest heard from Brighton businessman Albie Saliba’s, whose car span on the ice and skidded backwards before crashing into the already-stationary car of another driver moments before Brianna’s fatal crash.

As he stood on the hard shoulder, he watched subsequent drivers lose control.

He said: “No-one had a chance. Every car skidded, it was just lucky there weren’t that many cars on the road. Heavy cars slid and littler cars like mine span.”

The section of the A23, which is unlit, curves to the right just after the exit to West Road but Brianna’s car continued straight and left the carriageway.

Eyewitness Robert Horrocks, from Kent, said “It was raining hard and the road was absolutely white with hailstones.

“She slid off the road to the left.

“She hit the side of the road with her front wheels and she seemed to jump up in the air by about six feet and she span end over end and disappeared off into the ditch.”

Crash investigator Roland Watmore of Sussex Police said the Highways Agency had not gritted the roads the night before the crash, having received a forecast that weather would not fall below three to five degrees.

He said that even if salt or grit had been used, it would have been washed away by the morning’s torrential rains.

My Skipp said Brianna had died from multiple injures, adding : “I suspect the driving conditions were so terrible and she had so little experience of them that it was a tragic accident.”

Brianna’s father Andy Cambridge said that Gatwick, where she worked ferrying disabled passengers on a motorised buggy, had named one of its new vehicles after Brianna.

He said: “They have dedicated a buggy to Brianna’s memory and her colleagues fight to get that one at the start of the shift.”

The family has also inaugurated an annual children’s day out, run by Seaford charity Teddy Treats, which will include trips to the Sealife centre which Brianna loved.