A truck driver narrowly avoided serious injury after nodding off behind the wheel of her truck, ploughing through the central reservation of the M5. 

Sarah-Louise Murray from County Armagh was driving through Somerset having left Scotland the evening before. 

Ms Murray lost control of her truck at 7.12am on March 13 having spent more than ten hours behind the wheel. 

Shocking dashcam footage from a HGV following Murray shows how her lorry drifts to the left onto the hard shoulder before clipping the bank and slewing wildly to the right. 

The truck swerves in front of a car with the dashcam and crashes through the central reservation as Murray's trailer topples over sideways and slides onto the north bound carriageway. 

The dashcam shows a van moments down the road which narrowly avoids crashing into the out-of-control truck. Luckily, no other vehicles were involved in the incident.

The 24-year-old truck driver pleaded guilty to dangerous driving at Taunton Crown Court. 

She was told that the incident could have led to 'a substantial loss of life'. 

According to police examining the truck's tachograph, a device which measures the amount of time a driver has been behind the wheel, discovered the driver's card had been removed. 

Police discovered Murray had a rest period of eight hours and 53 minutes - which is less than the required minimum of nine hours. 

Murray was jailed for eight months, suspended the sentence for 18 months, she was also banned from driving for 12 months and ordered to sit an extended test.