A British backpacker has told how she cheated death in a horror bus crash that killed one and left 43 others injured.

Ciara Breen, 26, was one of eight Brits onboard a 10-hour overnight sleeper bus which veered off the road in Laos, south east Asia and crashed into a tree.

Local media reported that one man was killed in the crash, which happened at around 5am local time on Sunday, January 26.

Ciara, from Kingston upon Thames, London, was one month in to a six month tour across Asia at the time of the crash.

Speaking from a hospital in neighbouring Thailand, she said: "It all happened very quick, I just remember being jolted forward and thinking ‘oh God, this isn't good' and realising what had happened."

"I turned to my left and I think the guy from the top bunk must have fallen down, I could see he was bleeding out. "

"I knew it was a lot more serious than the positions we were in." "

Despite being given the all-clear following an X-ray in Laos, she visited another hospital in Thailand after receiving advice from her insurance company.

There, doctors found out she had a compression fracture on her spine and advised her not to carry more than two kilograms of weight, well below her 18kg backpack, forcing her to cut short her trip.

She said: "It feels like a blur, but it also sticks with you in a weird way, everything happened at once. "

"The impact was quite heavy and people changed places, that must have been from the impact."

"We were very lucky to be near the emergency exit, so some of the first that were off. "

"Once you're off, you just saw what felt like a horror movie: people trying to escape from the bus, us on the roadside. "

"I knew at the moment that something had happened to my back, I was in a lot of agony."

Travelling with Ciara was Leon Tinsley, 24, who set off on a solo trip around the continent from his home in Blackpool, Lancs., on New Year's Eve.

He made friends with three fellow Brits in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and had been travelling with a group for three weeks at the time of the crash.

Now left with a head injury and a swollen eye, Leon described the bus journey over the phone from the Thai hospital.

He said: "All night, the driver was driving the bus completely erratically – swerving, speeding, overtaking. "

"The journey was a nightmare. "

"For those travelling south east Asia, that type of driving is a part of the norm, but for us, it turned into a nightmare that will haunt us for the rest of our lives."

He added: "We were just in complete shock at the impact, we knew what had happened but then we started seeing bodies coming out, there was a lot of blood."

"It was just an absolute nightmare really, that's the only way to describe it."

"The police arrived and the paramedics came, there were locals trying to help. It seemed like there was a lot of shock going about."

"They used every resource to try and help us, and I went back into the bus to try and help, I was able to walk."

"I went back into the bus, helped whoever I could with blankets, wrapping t-shirts around wounds to stop bleeding, and eventually the police and services came to help pull people out of the wreckage."

Leon said that many of the people on the bus had been Israelis, who were worse affected as they had chosen to sleep in the top bunks on board.

He added: "All the British had the bottom bunks. Originally when we first got on I tried moving to a top bunk, but I don't think we'd be talking today if I was on a top bunk."

"It was right near the roof, unfortunately, the Israelis did get the top bunks and from what we've seen in the hospital, it was just awful really the way they came out of it compared to us."

"I was taking ages of some of the Israelis, some of them were 19. It was really hard to take someone's age who hopefully isn't paralysed, but from what they were telling me their injuries were… it was just heartbreaking really."

The former bar worker had been cautious to only drink bottled beer on his trip after reading about British tourists who had died from drinking tainted alcohol at a youth hostel in Laos last year.

Now, Leon, who hopes to continue his trip when he is released from hospital, wants others to be aware of the dangers of the region's sleeper buses.

He said: "I wasn't aware of the transport risks, there were a lot of news articles we discovered after the impact."

"If we'd have known and it had hit western media then we probably would have never got on."

"We may never have got on that bus, it needs the attention."

"I'm not pointing fingers, I'm not blaming anyone, everyone on the scene was absolutely amazing, but it just needs maybe regulating a little bit more."

"I don't want anyone else to go through it. "

"All my friends we met on these travels, I've messaged them ‘please be safe on these buses'."

The UK Foreign Office and the Laos Embassy in London have been contacted for comment.