A TEENAGER collapsed in Darwen town centre after taking ecstasy and drinking too much.

The 18-year-old was with three friends when he fell to the floor on the corner of Harwood Street and Baron Street.

Coun Nigel Nuttall was driving to a recycling centre when he saw the teenager lying unconscious on the floor and assumed he had been knocked down by a car.

Coun Nuttall said: "His eyes were rolling around and he was foaming at the mouth.

"His friends said he'd taken an ecstasy tablet.

"I thought he'd been knocked down but he was walking around and suddenly went down."

A friend of the teenager took instructions over the telephone from an ambulance crew member to put him in the recovery position until they arrived minutes later and took him to Royal Blackburn Hospital, at 11.30am on Sunday.

He recovered consciousness shortly before the crew arrived and initially refused to be taken to hospital but was calmed down and persuaded to attend by his friends who went to A&E with him.

Coun Nuttall, who represents the Sunnyhurst ward, said: "Others have got to realise they can't play with these things.

"If there was nobody around that stuff can kill and on a Sunday morning there's not usually that many people about."

A spokesman for Lancashire ambulance service said: "At 11.37am an ambulance was called to the corner of Baron Street and Harwood Street.

"The call out was to an 18-year-old who was on the floor unconscious suffering from the effects of alcohol and ecstasy."