EMERGENCY services used hydraulic cutting equipment to free a young woman trapped in a VW Polo which had veered into a ditch. The woman, believed to be about 16 or 17, was trapped in the car after it came off North Road in Baldock. Fire engines from Baldo

EMERGENCY services used hydraulic cutting equipment to free a young woman trapped in a VW Polo which had veered into a ditch.

The woman, believed to be about 16 or 17, was trapped in the car after it came off North Road in Baldock.

Fire engines from Baldock and Hitchin, plus paramedics and police attended the accident last Thursday.

The four other occupants of the car escaped but the woman was stuck in the rear passenger seat.

Paramedics and ambulance technicians stabilised her before she was removed and placed on a spinal board.

She was then taken to hospital with suspected spinal injuries but a police spokesman said that she had in fact only suffered minor injuries.

Gary Sanderson, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Ambulance and Paramedic Service duty officer who attended the scene, said: "It was a bitterly cold evening and the fire and ambulance crews did a great job to free her as quickly as they did.