A COUNCIL has reissued a safety warning about diseased conker trees after a 13-year-old girl fell 15ft and was seriously injured.

The girl, from Accrington, sustained serious head and internal injuries and a broken arm after she fell from a 20ft horse chestnut tree in Milnshaw Park, Accrington, yesterday at 8pm.

She was taken to Blackburn Royual Infirmary then transferred to Manchester's Pendlebury Children's Hospital, where she was to have an operation.

The fall comes a week after Hyndburn Council warned parents that the borough's conker trees were stricken with a mystery disease that left them unsafe.

Phytophthora Bleeding Canker disease, which can kill the trees, has affected 160 in the borough and can be recognised by an early autumn leaf drop with bright yellow leaves and partially dead branches in the crown. Phil Lynch, 73, of Lupin Close, Accrington, said: "A bloke knocked on our gate and asked me to call for an ambulance because a girl had fallen out of a tree.

"We went down and saw a group of kids run off before we saw this young girl. She was on the ground and looked to be in a lot pain. The ambulance people put her arm in a splint and put her on a stretcher."

Paramedic Alan Slater said: "She was really in a bad way. She had broken her arm and had sustained serious head and internal injuries."

Leader of Hyndburn Council Coun Peter Britcliffe said: "Conker trees are a major attraction to children. But the advice I would give, even if the weren't diseased, is wait till the conkers have fallen because climbing trees is extremely dangerous."

Coun Malcolm Pritchard, Milnshaw ward, said: "We don't know why this girl fell, a branch may have cracked but we are surmising. but please, please don't climb conker trees. "

Mark Cocks, Hyndburn Council's trees and woodlands officer, said: "Diseased trees are present at Great Harwood, Stanhill, the Woodlands, Mercer Park and All Saints areas of Clayton-le Moors, the Dunkenhalgh Hotel area, Accrington Cemetery, Altham Industrial Estate, Accrington and Rossendale College and the nearby Ambulance Station and Hollins Lane.