A Terang man in his 20s has been charged over an incident where a 24-year-old Geelong man was run over while sleeping in his tent at the Falls Festival in Lorne on New Year's Day this year.

Key points: Police have charged a man with careless driving after Andrew Pepper was run over while sleeping in his tent at Falls Festival

Police have charged a man with careless driving after Andrew Pepper was run over while sleeping in his tent at Falls Festival Paramedics said he survived because he was sleeping on his stomach and that if the car had run over his chest he would have been killed

Paramedics said he survived because he was sleeping on his stomach and that if the car had run over his chest he would have been killed Seven years earlier Sophie Mildren, who had also been sleeping on her stomach in a tent, survived being trapped after a car slid onto her at the same festival

Police have charged the man with careless driving and drug driving after the incident in which plumber Andrew Pepper woke up trapped and eventually realised he had been run over.

The man is due to appear in the Warrnambool Magistrates Court in July.

Paramedics said man survived because he was lying on his stomach

Mr Pepper has described how he woke up on January 1 to the sound of screaming and felt trapped, but had no idea what had happened.

Andrew Pepper, who was run over by a car in his tent at the Falls Festival at Lorne on January 1, 2019. ( Supplied: Andrew Pepper )

He had been sleeping on his stomach when a car stopped on top of him, leaving him with tyre marks on his back and falling in and out of consciousness.

His friends described how they narrowly escaped being run over by the car and then saw his legs sticking out from under the car.

Initially they thought he was dead, but after realising he was just stuck a group managed to pull Mr Pepper out from under the vehicle.

The paramedics who looked after him told him he was still alive because he had been sleeping on his stomach, and that if the car had run over his chest, he may have been killed.

Mr Pepper spent some time in hospital in Geelong and was found to have suffered a fractured vertebra.

At the time, Falls Festival issued a statement saying it was "saddened" Mr Pepper had been injured and that multiple levels of safety checks went into planning the event site.

Similar incident at Falls Festival seven years ago

Geelong teacher Sophie Mildren, now 26, was 19 when she woke up in her tent trapped under a car at the Falls Festival in Lorne.

"I read the story about what happened to the other boy and was in tears instantly," she said.

On that night she woke up at about 2am in her tent feeling squashed.

Sophie Mildren (middle) was 19 when she was pinned under a car while sleeping in her tent at Falls Festival in Lorne. ( Supplied: Sophie Mildren )

"It felt like someone had jumped on the tent," Ms Mildren said.

"I didn't know what had happened and was just trying to push whatever was on me off, which obviously wouldn't move because it turned out it was a car.

"It had slid down the hill from above our campsite."

Ms Mildren had also been sleeping on her stomach and the top half of her body was being squashed by the car.

She said the handbrake had been on and no-one was in the car, which had been stationary.

About 40 minutes after she was trapped, a paramedic managed to get close to Ms Mildren and cut a hole in the vehicle so she could see.

"They stayed under there with me the whole time while they figured out what they were going to do," she said.

"I was under there for about two hours before they were able to lift the car up and get me out."

Despite the time that has passed, hearing about what happened to Mr Pepper deeply affected Ms Mildren.

The impact of what she experienced that night has lingered.

"I tried to just forget about it and think I'm really lucky that I'm okay and bad things happen to everyone," she said.

"But a couple of years on it dawned on me that I'm probably really not that okay, and now I've been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder."

"I just hope this doesn't happen to anyone else."