School children watched in horror as a young woman was knocked unconscious in an accident with a vehicle on a busy Angus road.
The woman, named by witnesses only as Cara, was involved in a collision with a Scottish Hydro Electric van at around 3.15pm on Wednesday in Burnside Drive, Arbroath, near the junction with Brothock Bridge.
Emergency services raced to the scene, where the woman was lying face down beside the vehicle and bleeding.
A large crowd gathered at the metal barriers just a few feet away as paramedics arrived to assess her injuries.
The woman, who appeared around 18-20, seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness and could be heard mumbling to the ambulance crew as they attempted to communicate with her.
Officers confirmed the driver of the vehicle was not to blame for the incident, but he looked visibly shaken as he stood on the grass central verge.
Eyewitness Lesley Thomson (44) said her niece Tasha Smith, a friend of the woman, was with her when the accident happened.
“Tasha said it all just happened really quickly,” said Mrs Thomson.
“I was walking down the street and I heard the shouting from across the road so I just bombed it over because I thought it was Tasha that had been hit.
“The girl looked like she was dead at first, but then you could see she was breathing and conscious. It was frightening.”
Barry Peter (39) said, “We were here before the police and it was a guy in a lorry sitting at the traffic lights that called them.
“They were here really quickly but the ambulance took quite a while to arrive.”
He added, “I don’t know where the girl is from, but somebody said it might be Montrose.”
Paramedics lifted the woman onto a spinal board and fitted a neck brace before moving her into an ambulance to be checked over where she remained for around 20 minutes.
Speaking at the scene, Sgt Mark Hill said, “The woman was not seriously injured and after being treated at the scene refused to go to hospital in the ambulance.”
The van was dented in the collision and lost its passenger-side wing mirror which was lying at the roadside.
It is understood the woman is known at a local homeless shelter in Arbroath.