A YOUNG mother and her two children had a lucky escape as they watched their car demolished in front of their eyes by a 40ft lorry.

Karen Ainscough, aged 28, watched helpless as the car they were about to climb into for the school run was flipped on to its side and crushed by the wagon outside her house.

And today the mother said that if she had not been running late when the articulated lorry ploughed into the stationary car she, and her two young children, could have been killed.

She said: "Someone was obviously looking down on us. If we had been in the car we would have all been killed.

"The lorry hit the back of the car where my daughter would have been sitting. It doesn't bear thinking about what might have happened."

The lorry ploughed into the car and shunted it 60 feet along Wigan Road, Atherton, at 8.30am on Thursday before it struck a second car.

Both the Fiat Tipo belonging to Miss Ainscough and the Ford Escort which is owned by a neighbour were severely damaged.

Fire crews used chemicals to make petrol leaking out of both cars safe before helping to clear the road, which was blocked for around two hours.

Station Officer Paul Sharples, of Leigh Fire Station, said: "The woman, and her two young children particularly, have had a very fortunate escape.

"It could have been a very serious accident and you would have to fear the worst for anybody who had been in either of the cars."

Miss Ainscough was getting ready to take her five-year-old daughter Lauryn to school and would also have had her two-year-old son Morgan in the car at the time.

She added: "I was near the window and the turned round when I heard the bang.

"All I could see was the lorry and realised my car wasn't there. It struck me immediately that we could and should have been in the car by then."

A police spokesman said an investigation into the cause of the crash was under way and the driver of the lorry would be interviewed.