A GROUP of teenagers from west Lancashire who were on a coach which smashed head-on into a lorry had a "lucky escape", a spokesman for the Scouts said.

The Scout group was travelling towards Toronto, Canada, when their coach and a lorry collided, leaving 16 hurt.

One teenage girl suffered serious but not life-threatening injuries.

The group was on a two-week adventure trip when the accident happened in eastern Ontario shortly after 6pm BST on Thursday.

Scout Association spokesman Simon Carter said 10 youngsters, aged between 14 and 18, were taken to hospital. "I think they had a lucky escape," he said. "One of the coaches was involved in a crash with what appears to be an articulated lorry.

"Some young people sustained injuries. Fortunately none of them are life-threatening - they are cases of broken bones and shock."

He said the injured passengers were part of a group of 102 Scouts and leaders from west Lancashire who had been on the trip.

Constable Mark Boileau, media relations officer for the Ontario Provincial Police, said: "It appears that the tractor-trailer collided with the bus. They were both pushed on to one side of the road and the bus then partially flipped over and ended up in a ditch. It was lucky really because it happened only 200 metres from a community centre - a lot more people could have been hurt."

David Thornton, an officer with the Scout movement in Lancashire, said the youngsters were from different groups across the county.

They travelled to Canada on July 28 and had been to two camps in the country and were due to fly back to the UK on Monday.