Two escape as car skewered

Two men managed to escape from this twisted wreck of a car, which was skewered by a lamp post after losing control on a Black Country road today.

The driver and front passenger clambered out of the mangled Citroen Saxo, which careered off Sutton Road at Daisy Bank, Walsall, at around 6.15am.

The lamp post was ripped from the ground by the smash, taking down a telegraph cable in the process which knocked out telephone lines in the area.

A passenger in the back seat had to be cut out by firefighters before all three men, thought to be in their early 20s, were taken to Walsall Manor Hospital.

Sutton Road was closed from its junction with Longwood Lane to the Three Crowns pub, causing traffic to tail back up to one mile in each direction during the rush hour.

Walsall Manor Hospital sent a mobile team along with paramedics from West Midlands Ambulance Service to the scene.

Ambulance service spokeswoman Suzie Fothergill said the men were fortunate to survive.

"It sounds like they are lucky to be alive," she said.

"The car had left the road and collided with a lamp post.

"The driver and front-seat passenger were able to get out of the car and were treated by paramedics as walking wounded. However, the man in the rear seat had become trapped by the lamp post and was thought to be unconscious for a period while he was being cut out by firefighters."

He is not believed to have been seriously injured.

A pensioner whose home is a few yards from the scene of the accident said she was woken at 6.15am. The woman, who did not want to be named, said: "I just heard this loud crash and came down to see what was going on.

"I saw a man staggering around and then sitting on the wall at the front. I'm surprised anyone got out of that alive. I haven't got any telephone service now, because the cable's come down."