Driver 'fell ill' at wheel

A company manager had a lucky escape after an articulated lorry left the road and ploughed through the front counter of a business in Mid Wales.

Structural engineers were at the City Electrical Factors Ltd premises on the Severn Farm Estate in Welshpool following the accident yesterday.

Darryl Owen, branch manager of the electrical wholesalers which is trading as normal today, was alone in the single storey industrial unit when the lorry smashed into the building at around 3.55pm.

He said: "I was sitting at my desk and the next thing I knew there was a loud bang. I thought it was an earthquake as the whole building shook. I ran out and saw that an articulated lorry had come through the trade counter."

The driver was cut free from the cab, along with a young boy.

A spokeswoman for Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service said: "The driver of the lorry was believed to have been taken ill just before the vehicle crashed into the building. There were two people still inside the cab when we arrived and we cut them out."

A spokesman for the Ambulance Service said there were no reports of any injuries and no-one was taken to hospital.

In a separate accident yesterday, a man from the Whitchurch area died after a crash on the A41 at No Mans Heath, north of Whitchurch, at about 10.20am.

A police spokeswoman said: "A blue Peugeot moped was in collision with a Scania HGV. Sadly the driver of the moped, who was a 60-year-old man from the Whitchurch area, died at the scene as a result of his injuries."

A 46-year-old woman also died following a smash on the A458 Llanerfyl road, near Llanfair Caereinion, at 7.30am.

Meanwhile, an 11-year-old boy suffered concussion and lacerations in a collision with a car in Parkway, Telford, at 3.30pm on Thursday.