An elderly man from Linthwaite has died after a head-on smash between two cars on the road between Flockton and Bretton.
The 87-year-old driver, who has not been named, died at Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield, last night. A woman in the car with him is in a "serious" condition. She was airlifted to Leeds General Infirmary.
Emergency crews were called to the A637 Bar Lane between the Black Bull pub and the Bretton roundabout around 5pm yesterday.
The man who died was at the wheel of a blue Honda Civic which was travelling from Wakefield towards Midgley. His car hit a blue Mini One coming in the opposite direction. The woman driver of the Mini is in a "stable" condition.
Police have appealed for anyone who saw either car before the accident to ring 101.
The crash happened on Bar Lane between the Black Bull pub and Bretton roundabout shortly before 5pm.
A police armed response vehicle on routine patrol was the first on the scene and officers gave first aid to the stricken couple and a woman trapped in the Mini before paramedics and firefighters arrived.
Ambulance crews quickly called in the Yorkshire Air Ambulance and the doctors on board guided firefighters as the three injured people were cut out.
The woman was flown to Leeds General Infirmary while her husband was taken by road ambulance to Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield.
Acting crew commander Paul Howard-Smith from Skelmanthorpe fire station said: “The couple were both conscious and were not in a critical condition when we arrived which meant we had time to create space within the car so they could be carefully extricated.
“We took off the doors and the roof under close consultation with the doctors at the scene.”
Skelmanthorpe were joined by a crew from Ossett fire station near Wakefield and the entire rescue operation took around an hour.
The road, which is a favourite route to the M1 used by people from Huddersfield, was closed for several hours while police accident investigation experts worked at the scene to try to find out why the crash happened.
