A SECOND car is believed to have been travelling 'in convoy' with the Volkswagen Golf involved in a horror crash in Clayton.

Police investigating last night's smash in which a woman pasenger was badly hurt are still trying to trace the driver who left the scene.

Officers want to hear from anyone who saw the blue VW Golf and the second car, also believed to have been a VW Golf, travelling towards Bradford at the time of the collision or before it happenend.

The car came off the road at the junction of Hunters Park Avenue and Bradford Road in Clayton at 9.45pm yesterday demolishing a cast iron postbox before striking a tree and ending up through the garage wall of a nearby house.

Smoke was pouring out of the engine when firefighters from Fairweather Green and Odsal stations arrived.

There was already a crowd of around 40 people surrounding the car and some people were filming.

Caoimhe-Mary Muckian, 25, lives on Bradford Road. She was one of the first people on the scene and got in the car to help the woman.

She said: “It was just horrific. It was very scary, it was not nice at all.

“I had blood all over me - from what I could see, she was bleeding quite heavily.

“It all happened so quickly, it was afterwards when it kind of hit me. I’m still shaking.

“I had to hold her tongue down because she was trying to swallow it. I tried to hold her tongue and hold her wounds. I was absolutely terrified.

“I thought the car was going to go up in flames, I thought ‘if this car goes on fire, I’m going to have to get her out’.”

Miss Muckian, who was hospitalised for smoke inhalation, said the driver was at the scene for around five minutes and gave her the woman’s name and age.

She asked him to open all the doors and the boot and to smash the front window, but that was the last she saw of him.

Tina Sharpe, 55, lives in the house the car smashed into and rushed out after hearing a bang.

She said: “I saw the driver getting out, I ran up. I couldn’t get to the girl. The lad got out and I said ‘what are you doing?

"The airbags had gone off. There was people all around. Everyone was screaming and running around.

“There’s bits of car right down the road.”

Michelle Turpin, 47, said her husband, a first-aider, had also tried to get to the woman to help but struggled as there were so many people around.

She said: “The road is really bad for speeding, they just don’t care. They drive like lunatics.

“Something needs doing - someone is going to get seriously hurt.”

Fairweather Green Watch Commander Peter Hanson said the crews were "shocked" by the extent of devastation at the scene.

"The woman was still in the car, slipping in and out of consciousness. There were about 40 people surrounding the car, filming. 

"The car had come off the road through a red cast iron postbox, hit a tree then crashed into the side of a garage. It was halfway through. We were shocked by the devastation. It was a challenging job made even more complex because we also had to deal with an unstable structure," he said.

Crews had to douse the smoke to stop it bursting into flames before cutting off the car roof and getting the injured woman out on a spinal board.

"Her injuries were very serious. The driver of the car was not at the scene. There was every man and his dog out looking for him," added Watch Commander Hanson.

A police spokesman said the woman passenger, who had arm and hand injuries is still in hospital.

"It is believed that the vehicle was travelling in convoy with another Volkswagen Golf towards Bradford and officers would like to speak to anyone who may have witnessed the collision or the events prior to it," said the police spokesman.

Anyone with information should contact PC 2290 Conlon at the Safer Roads and Neighbourhood Support team on 101, quoting log 1983 of 17 July.