A COUPLE escaped serious injury by minutes when a van smashed into two cars, skidded across the road and crashed through a gas pipe in the doorway of a house.

Ironically, the pair had been watching a film, 'The Nick of Time', and had decided to wait until it ended before leaving the house.

The crash, on Harrowby Street, Farnworth, which ruptured the gas pipe and dislodged bricks from the doorway of the house, happened just minutes after the film ended and as the pair were getting ready to go out.

This morning, house owner, Dawn Spilsbury, 27, said: "Had the film finished a couple of minutes earlier we could have been standing in that doorway when the van crashed into it.

"I cannot believe it - especially as the film was called 'The Nick of Time'."

Several residents were evacuated, while others were told to keep their doors and windows shut after the crash which happened shortly before 3pm yesterday.

As the police, fire and ambulance made their way to the street, Dawn and her friend, Nick Eckersley, 30, who was visiting at the time of the crash, sprang into action, directing traffic away from the scene.

The crash happened when the van driver, Alex Nooton, 26, of Woodford Avenue, Lowton, is thought to have swerved to avoid a child running across the road.

He then collided with the parked Ford Escort which was shunted several yards into a parked Ford Fiesta. The van then skidded across the road into the gas pipe. The driver escaped with a slight wrist injury.

Firemen kept a precautionary jet going in the area of the gas leak, police sealed the site off and ambulance paramedics treated the driver.

Farnworth Sub-Officer Ian Brown, said: "It was a situation in which all three of the emergency services worked well." The pipe on the outside of Dawn's home was completely ruptured. The gas leak was fixed by Gas Board workmen an hour after the accident.

Neighbours are now urging the council to act on the level and speed of the traffic which passes down the road.

Roy and Michelle Howell, whose Ford Fiesta was damaged in the crash, said: "We desperately need road bumps putting in. In the past six months, my car has been crashed into twice while parked outside my house.

"And since the bus route has been introduced the level of traffic has been awful."

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