“Sometimes life and death can be a matter of inches.”

Kiama’s James Hickey knows how close he and many nearby motorists came to disaster during a high-speed pursuit on Saturday.

His dashcam captured the moment an allegedly stolen Ford Mustang came screaming towards him on the wrong side of the Princes Highway, near the turnoff to Gipps Street.

Hickey had just finished a round at Kiama Golf Club and was heading home when the chaos unfolded.

“This guy in a white van overtakes me, and next thing I saw him swerving off the road as the Mustang came towards us on the wrong side,” he said.

“In that moment, I was blown away. I couldn’t believe it. It was a great escape for all of us who he was driving towards.”

Police will allege the Mustang had been stolen earlier that afternoon during an incident in Worrigee, when a 25-year-old man, armed with an axe and hammer, allegedly assaulted a woman before speeding off in her sports car.

South Coast Police officers had been called to Rayleigh Drive shortly before 1pm following reports of a man armed with weapons.

As officers from the South Coast Police District arrived, the man allegedly threw an axe at their vehicle, retrieved it, and then ran to a nearby home on Illawarra Circuit.

There, he allegedly assaulted a 66-year-old woman while she was sitting in her Mustang, striking her multiple times with the axe before forcing her from the vehicle.

Police allege she was then run over as the man drove off in her car.

She was treated at the scene by paramedics for serious injuries to her legs and torso before being transported to Shoalhaven Memorial Hospital in a serious but stable condition.

What followed was a chaotic hour-long police pursuit that stretched across multiple South Coast towns, including Nowra, Bomaderry, Berry, Gerringong and Kiama, and reached speeds of up to 180km/h in 80km/h zones.

With assistance from PolAir, officers tracked the Mustang as it sped southbound on the Princes Highway.

Police attempted to deploy road spikes, but the driver allegedly swerved toward a highway patrol officer to avoid them, narrowly missing both the officer and the device.

In a final act of desperation, the Mustang was seen driving north in the southbound lanes through Kiama Downs, endangering multiple vehicles, including the white van and Hickey’s car.

“Fair play to the person who was driving the van in front of me. He took really good evasive action,” Hickey said.

“It was only a bit later on, when I was processing what happened, I thought, ‘shit, that could have been so much worse’. One of my initial thoughts went back to the Liverpool soccer player (Diogo Jota) who was killed in a car crash (on July 3 in Spain).”

The pursuit came to a dramatic end when the Mustang collided with a utility and came to a stop. Members of the public stepped in to restrain the man until police arrived to arrest him.

The 25-year-old man was taken to Wollongong Hospital under police guard before being released on Sunday.

He was then charged with a string of offences, including:

· Aggravated take/drive motor vehicle with person in/on it - armed with weapon

· Fail to stop and assist after vehicle impact causing grievous bodily harm

· Fail to stop and assist after impact causing injury

· Police pursuit - not stop - drive dangerously

· Class A motor vehicle exceed speed >45km/h

· Custody of knife in public place

· Use offensive weapon to prevent lawful detention (two counts)

· Goods in custody suspected stolen (not motor vehicle)

· Drive while disqualified

· Larceny

He was also charged with three outstanding offences:

· Destroy or damage property (domestic violence-related)

· Assault occasioning actual bodily harm (domestic violence-related)

· Larceny

The man did not apply for bail on Monday and will return to court in Nowra next Tuesday (July 22).