A DRIVER was lucky to escape with her life when a lorry crashed through the central reservation of a dual carriageway and hit her car head-on.

When paramedics arrived at the scene on the A56 Rawtenstall-Edenfield bypass at 10.45am yesterday the Ford Orion was a write-off.

Driver Sharon Exton, 34, of Bye Road, Shuttleworth, Bury, was sitting at the roadside.

Police said the wagon was travelling southbound from Rawtenstall when it crossed the carriageway and hit a tanker and the car in the northbound carriageway. Leading firefighter Edward Parkinson said: "The car driver was very lucky.

"It could have been a much more serious incident if the tanker had been more badly affected and there had been more traffic on the road.

"We were called to the scene to assist paramedics and make sure the vehicles were safe."

The busy Manchester link with Rossendale had to be closed for a couple of hours while the woman and lorry driver, Robert Almack, 37, of Brewery Road, Harrogate,were ferried to Bury General Hospital and the site cleared.

Firefighters and ambulance crews from Greater Manchester and Lancashire attended.

The woman suffered neck and shock injuries and the lorry driver had neck and head injuries. Both were released after treatment.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.