A young woman has spoken exclusively to Seven News about her life and death struggle with a car thief.

Tess Edwards was lucky to be alive after being dragged along a busy highway, and today she revealed she didn't think twice about confronting the driver.

The 22-year-old is battered and bruised from head to toe, but her condition has improved since she was dragged along the South Gippsland Highway for almost 100 metres.

She clung to the side of her boyfriend's father's stolen ute, later found abandoned and torched in Cranbourne.

"I remember holding my head and my whole hand was covered in blood," she told 7News. "All my chest was covered in blood."

Tess Edwards reveals life and death struggle with car thief. Photo: 7News

Tess, her boyfriend and two other friends came across the stolen Ford Courier in Carrum Downs and tracked it to Dandenong.

Without thinking twice, the 22-year-old confronted the driver and the passenger as they pulled up to a set of traffic lights.

She reached into the driver's side, but he quickly wound up his window trapping her arm.

The driver took off through a red light, releasing Tess 80 metres on, unconscious and suffering severe grazing.

"I was scared and petrified, and I just didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know whether I was going to go under the car, or whether another car was going to hit me, or whether they weren't going to let me go," she told 7News.

Chronically ill, David O'Donnell relied on his ute to get to hospital and back.

A significant clue in identifying the car thieves may have come from an ATM, which captured security vision of a man using David O'Donnell's bank card less than an hour after his car was stolen.

Tess Edwards' physical pain is compounded by the loss of her grandmother's wedding and engagement ring, which had been left in the glove box.

The thieves remain at large, but as for Tess, she is not ready for another close encounter.