PARAMEDICS today condemned a vandal for potentially putting a patient's life at risk by smashing the windscreen of an ambulance as it attended a 999 call.

A crew from Accrington ambulance station was called to Guy Fold Cabaret Club, in Guy Street, Padiham, just after midnight today after a 63-year-old woman was knocked unconscious when she fell and banged her head on a snooker table.

But when the crew left the pub, a bottle had been thrown through the windscreen of the vehicle.

Paramedic Colin Willis said: "It is absolutely unbelievable. We just couldn't believe what we saw. Luckily this lady regained consciousness but if she had been having a heart attack or something like that I dread to think what might have been." The crew had to call for a second ambulance, from Clitheroe, to ferry the injured woman to Burnley General Hospital.

Fred Finch, duty manager for Lancashire County Ambulance Service, said the vandal's act as "sheer stupidity."

He added: "A life could have been placed at risk. The crew from Accrington were on the scene after just eight minutes and they would have been at the hospital after another 20.

"The Clitheroe crew would have taken 30 to 40 mins just to get to the scene."

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