A MULTIPLE vehicle crash left a road closed for eight hours yesterday (February 20) while emergency services dealt with the scene.

Firefighters had to cut a driver out of a Sainsbury’s home delivery van after it collided with an articulated lorry which then hit a Renault patient transport vehicle and a tree in Bromley Road, Beckenham, at about 3.50pm.

The 44-year-old man, who was suffering from back pain, was then taken to Lewisham Hospital by ambulance.

A 96-year-old wheelchair user was in the back of the patient transport vehicle at the time of the collision but she is not thought to have been seriously injured.

As well as the Sainsbury’s driver, two other patients were taken to Croydon University Hospital and Princess Royal University Hospital, Farnborough, but details of their injuries are not known.

The road was closed from the junction of Scotts Lane to by Shortlands train station until 11.50pm because it took a while to get the articulated lorry removed from the scene.