Elderly couple hurt in Brierfield crash

It happened at the Lane Ends junction on Walverden Road, Brierfield, at just after 2-30pm on Saturday.

The blue Kia Carens car had just passed through the traffic lights at the junction with Halifax Road and Kings Causeway but then struck the parked van.

And it careered back down the hill to the junction and was in collision with a lorry which was just turning into the main road from Kings Causeway.

It is believed elderly driver Mr John Barry Richardson (77), from Westcliffe Walk, Nelson, may have been taken ill before the crash happened.

The emergency services were called out to the scene. Mr Richardson’s wife Vera, in her early eighties, was out of the car and was looked after in a nearby house. But Mr Richardson was still in the vehicle and needed rescuing.

The police closed the main road and redirected traffic.

Fire crews from Nelson and Burnley cut the roof of the car at one end and rolled it back so that the firefighters and paramedics could deal with Mr Richardson and get him out of the badly damaged car.

Mr Richardson was able to talk to the crews, and a firefighter described him as “quite coherent”.

Another ambulance and a paramedic fast response car were there, and Mrs Richardson, who had chest pains, was also taken to hospital for treatment.

Vehicles approaching the Lane Ends Junction were having to turn round and go on an alternative route, but in about two hours the roads were each re-opened.