Eyewitnesses said two men left trapped inside a vehicle were lucky to be alive after a car being driven away from a burglary at high speed crashed into six parked cars.

Firefighters were forced to free the pair from the mangled wreckage in Manchester Road, Burnley, early yesterday morning using cutting gear.

Police said the Honda Civic they were in had been stolen during a raid on a house in Ladbrooke Grove, Rosehill earlier in the night.

The car containing the two men demolished the front wall of a house just past the Summit traffic lights before spinning off into the opposite carriageway.

Debris and broken glass was also left strewn across the road between the Summit junction and Raeburn Grove.

A Manchester Road resident said: "You could hear one of the men screaming out in pain as they brought him out of the car.

"Someone who came to recover the cars said he had been told they were doing very high speeds coming down the road."

Another resident, who is in his 30s, said: "It was just metal and mayhem.

"It looked like they had hit five or six cars before my wall.

"I ran out with my fire extinguisher at first, to see if there was anything I could do.

“One of the cars must have been airborne to do the damage it did. They are just lucky to be alive.

"It's just a good job it happened when it did and not during the middle of the day or it could have been much worse.

"There could have been young people going to and from school."

Another neighbour said: "We just heard a loud bang after midnight.

"We heard from the police that they were thought to be doing more than 100mph when they crashed."

Jeff Sumner, who represents the area on Burnley Council, said he was shocked to hear of the incident.

He said: “This sounds very out of the ordinary for the area.

“We have got a neighbourhood watch scheme and crime, particularly burglaries, are at an all-time low, so I am very surprised to hear about it.”

The men cut free from the car were taken to the Royal Blackburn Hospital for treatment.

A 20-year-old driver suffered a broken leg and a 21-year-old bruising. Both were arrested by police.

Four other people, men aged 21 and 36, and girls aged 16 and 18, were detained at a nearby house, believed to be in Manchester Road, shortly after the crash.

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