A TEENAGE boy suffered a head injury in a collision on a busy road.

The 13-year-old, namely locally only as Jack, was hit by a red car travelling westbound along Plodder Lane, Farnworth, at just after 12.30pm on Saturday and was taken to Royal Manchester Children's Hospital.

The crash happened outside Rosie's Sandwich Bar near the junction with Daisy Avenue and owner Lesley Mayhew was one of the first on the scene.

She said: "We were just finishing up at about 12.30pm and I just heard this almighty bang and ran to the front door and saw the boy in the middle of the road.

"I shouted for my colleague Janice to ring an ambulance and I ran back inside to grab my mum's cardigan to keep him warm.

"He had blood on the top of his head but he was conscious. He told me he was 13 and his name was Jack. 

"The boy had been on his own.

"He was delirious and as white as a sheet and he just had his mobile phone and his glasses in his hand.

"The 999 operator asked me not to move him.

"The poor little lad kept complaining about a pain in his ear, on his head, his ribs and his ankle.

"I've spent the whole weekend worrying about him."

It is believed the boy's father and grandmother and another male relative, possibly an uncle, arrived on the scene after being traced by other bystanders.

Mrs Mayhew said the driver of the red car involved, who looked in his 60s, stopped at the scene.

The windscreen of the car was smashed into two places and suffered a big dent on the left-hand side of the bonnet. 

She said: "I did feel sorry for the driver. He was very shaken up.
"The driver kept saying: 'He (the boy) ran out between parked cars.'"

Part of Plodder Lane was shut by police for an hour as the emergency services dealt with the incident.

A spokeswoman for North West Ambulance Service said: "A child had been knocked down. He was in his early teens.

"We sent a rapid response vehicle, an ambulance and an ambulance manager.

"The patient had a head injury and he was taken to Royal Manchester Children's Hospital."

Statistics from Transport for Greater Manchester show there have been nine road accidents in which a casualty was 'slightly' injured and one fatal collision – the car crash that killed Latham Schofield – in the last three years on the same 350metre stretch of Plodder Lane between its Marsh Lane and Harper Green Road junctions.