A man hit by a car while walking his dog in Ashton has spoken about how he was knocked unconscious and came round to find himself sitting in the car that hit him.

Jason Roberts said he was groggy and didn't know what was happening to him after a routine walk with his dog Taz took a disturbing turn just a couple of streets from his house.

Police are now investigating the incident, which happened on Sunday evening close to Bristol City's Ashton Gate stadium, and appealing for witnesses.

Mr Roberts was walking Taz along Duckmoor Road in Ashton when a dark-coloured 4x4 struck him on the corner of the junction with Smyth Road.

The incident happened at around 8.15pm and has shocked the community in BS3 and across Bristol.

Mr Roberts spoke after his dog was found by a small army of volunteer searchers stuck on the south bank of the River Avon in dense undergrowth near Coronation Road in Southville.

He said his memory of exactly what happened was sketchy because of the severe head injury he suffered in the crash. He was admitted to the BRI and only discharged two days later.

"I was crossing the road and I had just got to the edge of the kerb, I think," he said. "And this car came round the corner and it cut the corner and hit me.

"I don't really remember what happened then – the next thing I remember is waking up in this car and I didn't know where I was and then I realised 'oh I'm in a car'.

"And we were going along Duckmoor Road back from where I had been and so I couldn't work out where I was. Then I realised we were near my house so I said to the guy driving: 'let me out, this is where I live' and he stopped and dropped me there.

"I didn't quite know what was going on, and I just went and knocked on the door," he added.

Mr Roberts' wife Jemma answered and said at first she didn't know what was going on – her husband was covered in blood and semi-conscious, and was looking at a car. She said she saw a dark-coloured 4x4 and tried to follow it as it drove off.

A police investigation into what happened has begun, with appeals for witnesses and information about who the mystery driver was. Mr Roberts said some witnesses have come forward.

"It was a good job because they were able to say what happened to me, and it might well have been that someone would've thought I was just a drunk or something, stumbling around bleeding like that in the street," he said.

Mr Roberts' dog Taz fled from the scene, and while its owner was recovering in hospital, a search was undertaken in the Ashton area which ended in happy and dramatic scenes^[1] at lunchtime on Tuesday – 40 hours later.

There was further speculation about the incident after another person posted on social media in BS3 that their tenant had also been hit by a car with a very similar description, and slightly hurt.

That incident was reported to have happened on the junction of West Street and Sheene Road, near the MacDonalds in Bedminster, just under a mile away and around an hour earlier on Sunday evening, although police are yet to confirm they have received a report of this.