Anusha Ranganathan, 41, admitted death by dangerous driving and was today sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison
An exhausted new mother has been jailed for killing a 70-year-old grandmother who she slammed into a ditch after falling asleep at the wheel.
Anusha Ranganathan, 41, caused Patricia Robinson the 'most horrific' and ultimately fatal injuries when she veered her Toyota on to the wrong side of an Oxfordfordshire A-road and into the pensioner's car.
The impact threw the IT businesswoman's 18-month-old son from the back seat and into the footwell as flames engulfed the vehicle.
The baby and Ranganathan were both rescued and have since recovered but Mrs Robinson died five weeks later in hospital after rupturing 'almost every organ' in her body.
Ranganathan admitted death by dangerous driving and was today sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison.
Jailing her at Oxford Crown Court, Judge Ian Pringle said: 'When someone is driving a car and they fall asleep, it turns into a lethal weapon. This was a poor piece of driving to put it mildly.
'We will never know why you drove in the way that you did, but it seems that you fell asleep behind the wheel.
'Mrs Robinson suffered injuries described by doctors as the most extensive in a road traffic accident who had not died, and this was caused by you.'
Patricia Robinson suffered the 'most horrific' and ultimately fatal injuries when Ranganathan veered her Toyota onto the wrong side of an Oxfordfordshire A-road and into the pensioner's car
The judge heard that the horrific crash happened in East Hanney, Oxfordshire, with both cars ending up in a water-filled ditch.
'Ranganathan's car caught fire with her baby, who was a passenger, trapped in the footwell after falling out of his baby seat. Mrs Robinson died in hospital almost five weeks after the crash.
Prosecuting at Oxford Crown Court Jonathon Stone said: 'At 11.50am on July 4 there was a collision between the defendant who was driving a silver Toyota and the victim who was driving a white Nissan Duke on the A338 near East Hanney.
'The Toyota, carrying Mrs Ranganathan's young son in the rear of the car, veered onto the opposite carriageway and hit the Nissan head-on, causing both vehicles to come of the road and into a muddy ditch.'
The prosecutor read the statement of a lorry driver who had witnessed the incident, in which he said: 'I saw a silver vehicle drifting across the carriageway. I thought one of the drivers would turn away, but they didn't.
'I expected to hear some braking, but nothing happened. I was quite shocked,' said trucker Roy Lacey.
The impact threw the IT expert's 18-month-old son from the back seat of the Toyota (rear) and into the footwell as flames engulfed the vehicle which had crashed into the pensioner's Nissan (fore)
He described the tragic scene of three men desperately trying to help an elderly woman escape from her car that was filling with smoke from a fire that had started after the collision, but they could not get the door open because of the grass verge.
He said: 'I helped lift the car to allow two men to get the woman out. She was passed out, we were all worried.'
A police investigation concluded that it was not the weather,
