Driver questioned after car crashes into wall

4:49pm Tuesday 18th March 2008

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A MAN is being questioned by police after four passengers were injured when a car crashed into a wall.

The 18-year-old was arrested hours after the red Ford Sierra crashed into a garden wall in Briercliffe Road, Burnley, at around 4am yesterday.

Firefighters said that there had been five people in the vehicle at the time of the crash.

Residents in the street heard a bang and contacted emergency services.

The vehicle was leaking fluid and the driver dragged the four passengers from the wreckage Watch manager Pete Ashworth said he may have made their injuries worse by doing so.

When fire crews arrived they found one girl was found hanging out of the car suffering from a collapsed lung.

Two girls in their late teens where on the side of the road with serious neck and spine injuries.

They also found another man in his late teens on the side of the road.

The driver had left the scene of the accident.

They were all taken to the Royal Blackburn Hospital by ambulance where their conditions have been described as serious.

One neighbour, who would not be named, witnessed the immediate aftermath of the crash from his bedroom window nearby.

He said: "There was a loud bang, at around 5am, which woke me up, but not my wife.

"I was watching while they were still in the car. Then someone got out of the car and pulled someone else out. She was just laid down in the middle of the road."

He said that he thought another neighbour, after seeing the immediate aftermath of the crash, positioned his vehicle further along Briercliffe Road, to prevent any other motorist from coming around the bend and hitting either the crashed Sierra or the driver and passengers.

Pointing towards Casterton Avenue, he added: "He (the driver) carried her across the road and tried to get away down there.

"She was just lying on the flags by this time.

"I think the car has come down from Harle Syke, it has skidded and hit the wall on the corner.

"It was a queer sort of a bang really."