A THREE-year-old boy was injured and a man suffered 50 per cent burns in two road accidents only days before Christmas.

The youngster was badly hurt after running across the road into the path of a 23-tonne truck in Station Road, Copmanthorpe.

He was taken to York Hospital for treatment to deep cuts to his head.

A man was also taken to the hospital with severe burns and a broken jaw after his car crashed into a stone wall and burst into flames on the outskirts of York.

Rescue crews were called to the scene, on the Bolton Percy to Tadcaster road, expecting to free the man, from West Yorkshire, from his car. But they found him collapsed a few yards from his burning Peugeot 106.

In the Copmanthorpe accident, a three-year-old boy who had been at a Christmas party at the nearby Panda Playgroup, stumbled into the path of a lorry.

A police spokesman said the driver was taken home suffering from shock. Station Road was closed for three hours after the accident.

"In a nutshell it seems the boy ran across the road in between a line of parked cars," said traffic constable David Taylor.

The truck, owned by York building merchants J H Walker, was loaded with bricks at the time of the collision.

Playgroup leader Helen Barritt said parents were picking up their children when the boy's mother came back into the WI hall shouting for an ambulance.

"I went to see if I could help, taking a first-aid box with me," she said.

"He'd been taken into a resident's house, and there was a former paramedic helping too. He was shouting and screaming and there was a lot of blood.

"The driver was very shocked. Because he was higher up, he had been able to brake. If it had been a car it could have been a different situation."

In the Tadcaster accident, rescue crews gave the injured man emergency first-aid and oxygen until paramedics arrived.

No other vehicle was believed to have been involved in the accident, which happened at about 8pm last night in Oxton Lane, outside Hornington Grange.

It is understood that members of the public had helped to put out the flames on the driver's clothes.

He suffered burns to his hands and a broken jaw, and lost "a considerable amount of blood". He was taken to York Hospital, but transferred to the Pinderfields Burns Unit, in Wakefield.

Traffic was delayed last night after a collision between a car and a van on the A19 between Escrick and Deighton at about 5pm. No one was injured.

Minor damage was caused to a railway bridge in York's Leeman Road after it was struck by a skip lorry at about 3.30pm yesterday. The driver was not hurt.

Updated: 12:20 Friday, December 20, 2002