ELEVEN people were injured and more than a dozen vehicles involved in serious crashes which snarled up a Doncaster motorway for the second time in eight days.
Frustrated motorists were forced to find alternative routes after two crashes within an hour of each other on the A1(M), one at Wadworth and the other near Sprotbrough on opposite carriageways.
It is believed queuing traffic resulting from last week's accidents, which damaged crash barriers and reduced lanes at Sprotbrough while repairs are completed, may have played a part in yesterday morning's pile-ups.
The first happened at 9am near the Wadworth interchange when a DAF lorry ploughed into a queue of vehicles on the north-bound carriageway.
It hit a red Volkswagen Golf which was spun round by 180 degrees. A 42-year-old woman from St Ives, Cambs, had to be rescued by Edlington and Notts fire crews and taken by air ambulance to hospital with a broken pelvis.
An elderly couple in the car, aged 72 and 70, suffered slight injuries.
Two men from Lincoln in a Mercedes truck escaped with whiplash and the occupants of a Ford Focus, which was buried under a pile of plasterboard which fell from the goods vehicle, were shocked but uninjured. Three other vehicles were involved but the drivers were not hurt.
About an hour later a similar accident happened in the south-bound carriageway between junctions 37 and 36, north of Sprotbrough. A red and white Ford Iveco articulated lorry is reported to have hit and damaged six cars in standing traffic.
Adwick fire crews had to cut a man out of a van and remove the roof from a Ford Mondeo to get a badly injured driver out before he was airlifted to hospital.
A fire officer said: "It was a scene of devastation when we arrived, with damaged vehicles strewn along a 200m stretch of the motorway."
Police say a 64-year-old Scarborough man, the driver of a white Ford Transit, suffered a serious back injury and was taken to Doncaster Royal Infirmary and a 36-year-old Chester man, the driver of a grey Ford Mondeo, received a serious head injury and broken arm.
The four other casualties were a 66-year-old Selby woman, driving a silver Volvo, who went to the Northern General Hospital, a 54-year-old Manchester woman, driving a black Audi A3, who was taken to the Doncaster Royal Infirmary; a 40-year-old Rotherham woman, driving a white Citroën Berlingo and a 62-year-old Castleford woman, driving a green Vauxhall Astra, who both went to the DRI. All four suffered whiplash.
Police are appealing for witnesses to the collisions yesterday, which caused lane closures and long tailbacks until late afternoon. Call the police accident witness line on 0114 2202970.
Further traffic problems were caused when a lorry broke down at the Pastures Road traffic lights junction in Mexborough and a Peugeot 206 caught fire about a mile north of Askern on the A19.
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