Ticked off: Family injured in horror car crash in remote Russian region after BLOOD-SUCKING INSECT crawled onto startled driver

An unlucky Russian woman landed herself and her two children in hospital with serious injuries after losing control and flipping her SUV while trying to remove a disease-spreading parasite that had crawled onto her shoulder.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Primorye region, located on the Sea of Japan, released a series of shocking snaps on Wednesday showing how the Honda four-by-four landed on its roof after coming off a motorway.

According to officials, the 41-year old woman behind the wheel had been driving from the city of Khabarovsk towards Vladivostok, the capital of Russia’s Far East. While motoring along, she felt something crawling across her shoulder, which she realized was a tick.

The tiny insects, which often prey on sheep and deer, are fond of latching onto people and sucking their blood. They have also been known to spread blood-borne infections such as Lyme disease, which can be debilitating if it goes untreated.

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In an effort to safely remove the tiny creature, she asked one of her children to catch it in a bottle of water, while keeping her hands on the wheel. However, while distracted, she lost control of the vehicle, hit a ditch and catapulted the car onto its roof.

The horror crash landed the driver in hospital with a head injury and fractured ribs. Her 15-year-old son suffered injuries to his head and a fractured shoulder, and her eight-year-old daughter had spinal injuries. No criminal proceedings will be initiated.

In December, a motorist died in the Russian Far East after breaking down on a remote abandoned road in temperatures of -50 degrees Celsius (-58 Fahrenheit). The body of an 18-year old youth was recovered from a car buried under the snow near Oymyakon, the coldest permanently inhabited settlement in the world.

Google Maps, which had previously advised drivers to follow the disused route, later changed its recommendations, telling motorists to take an alternative highway instead.

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