Witnesses have described the 'deafening bang' as a blue-light ambulance transporting a patient was involved in a collision with a car at a busy Bradford junction this afternoon.

The crash, which happened at the junction of Hall Ings and Bridge Street just after 2.30pm, brought the city centre spot to a stand-still as a fleet of other emergency vehicles including fire engines, police cars and more ambulances rushed to the scene.

Buses also came to a halt as firefighters made the area safe and gave first aid to a man and woman, around their seventies, who had been helped out of the passenger side of the black Mercedes that had been heading down Hall Ings towards Broadway through the box junction.

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Witnesses said the ambulance with its lights flashing had been travelling down Bridge Street when both vehicles collided with a "deafening bang."

One man said: "It made everyone stop. The noise was a deafening bang. The ambulance had its lights flashing and I think the sirens were going. They just collided. Both vehicles look write-offs."

Traffic was held up for about half-an-hour as police diverted cars and buses down other side routes.

The force of the impact had ripped off the ambulance bumper bar and its bonnet was up. The driver side of the car was crushed in.

An elderly male patient from inside the damaged ambulance was moved sometime later to another ambulance. He was sat up before being laid on a stretcher for the transfer.

A man and woman thought to have been travelling in the car were treated on a nearby bench before being led to a third ambulance.

Crowds of bystanders gathered to watch.

One of them said: "Someone's going to get into trouble for that. It's a mess. I wouldn't have wanted to be in any of them vehicles and definitely wouldn't have wanted to be the patient in the back."