A mum-of-two cut free from her car after a smash outside Huddersfield Royal Infirmary has paid tribute to health workers and passers-by who stopped to help.

Mrs Janel Robinson, 50, of Paddock, was stationary in Acre Street waiting to turn right into the car park at her GP’s surgery, Lindley Group Practice, when a minibus taxi smashed into the back of her.

The Ford Transit shunted Mrs Robinson’s Toyota Yaris yards down the road and careered into a hospital shuttle bus.

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The smash happened at 10am on Wednesday and left the road closed.

Mrs Robinson, who escaped with bumps and bruises, said: “I was stationary waiting for the oncoming traffic to clear.

“If I had actually turned I would have been killed.”

Housewife Mrs Robinson, who is married with two daughters, was trapped and had to be freed by firefighters who cut the roof off her car.

A nurse heading for work at the hospital stopped to help as did a doctor, who went to fetch an ambulance.

Four-vehicle smash outside Huddersfield Royal Infirmary

Mrs Robinson, whose car has been written off, said: “I didn’t realise until I saw the pictures in the Examiner how far my car had been shunted down the road.

“I was waiting to turn and suddenly there was a big bang as the minibus taxi hit me from behind and then came past me.

“A doctor parked his car and came down and a nurse on her way to work, I believe, got into the back of my car and held my head.

“All the emergency services – the police, the fire brigade and paramedics – were brilliant. In the A&E I was also looked after really well.

“I am just glad the A&E at HRI is still open.”

Mrs Robinson, who has had back problems from an old injury 16 years ago, said she considered herself very lucky.

“It could have been a lot worse,” she said. “Fortunately no-one was seriously hurt.”