High-speed smash shock

AN ambulance carrying a patient was left in a bad way after it smashed into a car during a high-speed collision at a busy city-centre junction.

The crash, which involved a blue Mini, happened at the junction of Bread Street and Lothian Road just after 1.15pm yesterday.

Police officers said the female occupant of the Mini was taken to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary as a precaution and checked for signs of whiplash.

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Neither of the medics required hospital treatment, and the patient suffered no further injuries. The road was closed by police for over an hour but reopened shortly after 2.30pm.

Workers and passers-by told of their shock following the collision, which destroyed part of a traffic island and left pieces of glass, rubber and other debris strewn around.

Eyewitness John MacKay, 35, a financial services worker for Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, said: “I was just getting my lunch and I could hear the ambulance siren – that was about 10 to 15 seconds before the collision. The car wanted to get into Bread Street and the front of the ambulance, which was going up Lothian Road, hit the side of the car face-on.

“It was a proper high-speed collision – I felt sick in my stomach when I saw it. The car got flipped 180 degrees by the impact so it was lucky there was no-one in the passenger side.” Chloe Anderson, 19, who works in Greggs on Lothian Road, said: “I just heard a crash but it sounded like a big bang as well. As soon as we heard it everyone ran out and the ambulance was smoking, and there was stuff leaking out the front of it. There was lots of shattered glass and there were people in the street screaming.”

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