Fire crews spent an hour-and-a-half freeing two people from the wreckage of a serious traffic accident in Woodford Green in the early hours of this morning.

Police were already on the scene of a crash near the bus stop outside Woodford County High School in Woodford New Road, when a second crash happened at around 3am.

A man was clearing up debris from the first smash when a transit van carrying milk ploughed into the first vehicle pinning the sweeper between the railings and the wreckage.

Watch manager Terence Jays from Woodford Fire Station said: “We were working for an hour-and-a-half to free the man underneath the transit van and to cut the casualty out of the milk vehicle.

“We had to lift the vehicle off the sweeper.”

The London Air Ambulance, two ambulances and a single responder attended the scene.

They treated a 27-year-old man and a woman, believed to have been a passenger in the van carrying milk, for leg injuries at the scene.

Both patients were taken to the Royal London Hospital as a priority.

There are no reported injuries from the first crash.

Redbridge Police have been asked to comment.