THREE men who walked away from a car crash thought they were ‘going to die’ when they collided head on with a lamppost.

Haris Akmall, 19, Adam Butt, 20, and Zaman Abbas, 22, suffered minor injuries when a silver Renault Megane hit a lamppost at the junction of St James’ Road and Whalley New Road, in Blackburn, at 1.10am, yesterday.

Two friends were taken to Royal Preston Hospital with serious chest and leg injuries after being cut out of the car by fire crews.

Mr Akmall, from Blackburn, said he thought the driver had shards of glass in his eye and had badly hurt his back in the crash, while the passenger suffered a broken leg.

He said: “I could not believe what happened, my life flashed before my eyes.

“I remember travelling down the road and the next thing we felt a huge bang and jolted forward.

“It was so scary, I thought I was going to die.”

A wall behind the lamppost was knocked over and metal railing was damaged.

Pieces of the car were left at the roadside and firefighters used sand to soak up fuel which had spilled onto the pavement.

Mr Abbas, from Blackburn, said: “We are still really shook up. I feel so lucky.

"We’ve come away from this but our friends are still in hospital.

“It was such a close shave.

"We sat in hospital for eight hours.”

A police spokesman said: “An investigation will be carried out as to how the car crashed as two of the occupants were seriously hurt.”

Blackburn fire station crew manager John Riley said: “The driver suffered serious chest injuries and the rear passenger suffered serious leg injuries which involved them being cut out of the car.

“We had to use hydraulic equipment to free the men so they could get out without causing any more injuries.

“All five of them were taken to hospital, including the three passengers who were walking wounded.

“We were there for around an hour and the police are investigating.”

Anyone with information can call police on 101 and quote LC-20170720-0071.