"I was just lying there, enjoying life, soaking in the sun when the van just drove over the top of me," Mr Davies, who moved from Armidale to Sydney this year to work in a Balmain restaurant, said.

"My natural reaction was to put up my head, but my head got caught and I got dragged probably a metre, but to me it felt like 10 metres."

Mr Davies spent Wednesday evening in St Vincent's Hospital, where he is in a stable condition with head injuries and a broken pelvis, after he was hit by a work van near Arden Street in Coogee just before midday.

"There was quite a lot of blood, the first thing I noticed was the blood dripping down my face and everywhere," Mr Davies said. "The doc still has to fix my head up.

"The doctor said I was very lucky because none of the wheels hit me. The car went completely over me, the wheels missed me. It was when I put my head up, my head got caught on the middle bit.

The driver who hit Mr Davies, a 44-year old plumber, was driving on the grass near beach-goers because he was doing maintenance work in the area.

Mr Davies, who remained conscious throughout the ordeal, said it was nothing more than a horrible accident.

"I don't know who he [the driver] was, he got straight out of the van as well. I think he was just in as much shock as I was.

"My body went into shock, so luckily for that it wasn't immense pain, but as time went on, it got more and more painful."

He was sunbaking on his own when he was hit out of the blue. Mr Davies said he feared his life would have been over had the vehicle run over his head.

"It hit me from nowhere, I didn't see it at all," Mr Davies said. "From the moment it actually happened when I was under the van, all the thoughts racing through my head was how bad this was going to be.

"When it actually happens to you, it kinds of makes you think."

Police have spoken to the driver and no charges have been laid.