Driver dies after lorry goes into hedge

A lorry driver died after his HGV left the road, hitting two parked cars and ploughing through a garden hedge in the Black Country.

The driver, today revealed as a 56-year-old man from Bradley in Bilston, had suffered a heart attack.

One of the parked cars was pushed into the side of a house, police said today, while the lorry ended up just metres from the front door of a home in Yew Tree Lane, Coseley.

Paramedics tried to resuscitate the driver at the scene but he was later pronounced dead in hospital.

Charmaine Haycock was in the front bedroom of her home when she saw the lorry career through her conifer hedge.

"It was just like it happened in slow motion," said Mrs Haycock, a 40-year-old carer. "All of a sudden I saw the bushes moving and I saw this cab come through the hedge.

"I ran and phoned the ambulance and the police and then I called my husband Paul, who is also a lorry driver, because I didn't know what to do."

Mrs Haycock, who has lived in Yew Tree Lane for 15 years, added: "We tried to resuscitate him but we just couldn't.

"It's such an awful thing to happen and I'm still shaking now. My heart goes out to his family."

Police sealed off Yew Tree Lane at its junctions with Summer Hill Road and Legge Lane following the tragedy at around 2.40pm yesterday.

Suzie Fothergill, West Midlands Ambulance services spokeswoman, said : "The driver of the lorry, a man, was out of the vehicle and was found to be in cardiac arrest," she said.

"Firefighters at the scene were carrying out CPR on the man. Ambulance crews immediately provided emergency medical treatment before taking him to Russells Hall Hospital. Unfortunately, despite best efforts of ambulance crews, fire service personnel and hospital medics, nothing could be done to save the man and he was confirmed dead at hospital."

Witnesses to the crash are asked to call the road policing unit at Dudley on 0845 113 5000.