A driver led children to safety after their school bus was involved in a head-on crash with two vans.

All 30 youngsters escaped serious injury but one van driver was critically injured.

Fire crews and paramedics freed the van driver after the crash in Maldon Road, Birch, at 8.30am yesterday.

The single-decker bus was taking pupils to Stanway School, Colchester. It was left hanging precariously over a ditch close to Hutton builders' yard.

Arriva bus driver Andrew McCutcheon, 42, of Speedwell Road, Colchester, led the children out of the emergency exit before fire and ambulance crews arrived.

Twelve of the children (aged ten to 16), who had been picked up from Birch, Easthorpe and Copford, were taken to Colchester General Hospital with whiplash and other minor injuries.

Mr McCutcheon was also slightly hurt and the other children were badly shaken.

The seriously-injured van driver, builder Steven Kipling, 46, of Hillview Close, Rowhedge, was trapped in his Renault Trafic van and had to be cut free before being transported to hospital.

His passenger, Shane Quentin, 28, of Holly Road, Stanway, was also taken to hospital with a shoulder injury.

The driver of a Ford Transit van, Russell Moore, of Wash Close, Lawford, did not need hospital treatment.

Resident Jean Howard, 70, said: "The children were being brought out of the bus's emergency exit. The scene was a real mess."

Station officer Lee Neale, of Colchester fire station, said: "When we arrived the children were already out and our priority was to get the van driver out."

Children were consoled by emergency workers and parents who had arrived at the scene.

Police said witnesses should ring Stanway traffic unit on 01206 762512

See "Stanway school bus crash: Parents' shock" in Newsround for more

(Right, top and bottom) Carnage: Two views of the crash scene as emergency services rush to the aid of those injured

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