A SCHOOLGIRL who cheated death when a car ploughed into a group of children waiting for a bus has spoken of the horrific crash.

Rebecca Jones, 12, of Causeway, Great Harwood, was standing with her friends waiting for a bus to take them to St Wilfrid's High School, Blackburn, when a Vauxhall Nova mounted the pavement and crashed into two bollards and the bus stop.

She said: "There were 10 of us there and we all stepped forward because the bus was coming. The car came out of nowhere. It all happened really fast.''

Year 8 pupil Rebecca ended up on the car bonnet while her friend Victoria Jade Walsh, 12, of Harwood Road, Rishton, was also slightly injured. However another pupil, Samuel Riding, 11, of The Esplanade, Rishton, suffered a double skull fracture and was rushed to Blackburn Royal Infirmary. He was later transferred to Pendlebury Children's Hospital in Manchester, where he was described as "stable and making progress'' yesterday. His parents were keeping a bedside vigil and were unavailable for comment.

Rebecca added: "I think Sam was inside the bus shelter when it happened. He is in the year below me. He is only small and I didn't really see what happened to him.''

Her dad David, who had dropped her off at the bus stop just minutes before the accident on Tuesday morning, said: "It was lucky those bollards were there to slow the car down or the accident could have been considerably worse."

The incident happened on Harwood Road, Rishton, near Norden High School, some of whose pupils were horrified to witness the crash. They raised the alarm at the school and paramedics and fire crews attended the scene while police quizzed the car driver, James Andrew Dean, 18, of Lindadale Avenue, Accrington.

St Wilfrid's headteacher David Whyte said: "I got a call from Norden telling me our pupils had been very mature. I believe it was the first time Samuel had used that bus stop. None of the children were misbehaving. It was a freak accident."

He revealed that some pupils had been given counselling after seeing the crash. He added: "A few of them had flashbacks so we gave them help and support. Our thoughts and prayers are with Samuel and his family."

Mrs Denise Parkinson, headteacher at Norden High School, said the crash caused minor disruption to pupils arriving for lessons.

Sergeant Stuart Isherwood, of Accrington's Road Policing Unit, said: "We would like to appeal to anyone who witnessed the incident to contact us on 353767."