Five 'serious' after coach crash

Five people have been seriously injured when a German tourist coach crashed into a shop in Regent Street, London.

Shoppers and workmen were forced to leap out of the path of the coach as it careered onto the pavement near Oxford Circus.

Police believe the driver had a heart attack and lost control.

He has sustained serious head injuries in the crash and four other people on board the coach have been taken to hospital.

The coach smashed through the window of a Boots chemist store, which was closed, and ambulance workers said shoppers had a "remarkable escape".

"If it had happened at any other time there would have been many, many more injured people," duty officer Garnet Hinds said.

The driver, a 15-year-old boy and three other men from the coach were taken to hospital with head, chest and arm injuries and ambulance workers examined eight other people at the scene.

About 25 people were on board the German-registered coach, marked Schumacher Tours, and were mainly German nationals, police said.

The coach demolished a bus stop and lamp post on one side of the road before swerving into the shop.

John Cohen, 69, a retired hotelier of Peckham, south-east London, said: "It's a miracle there were no vehicles or pedestrians in the way.

"The driver must have been having a fit or a heart attack because I could see him having a convulsion."

London Fire Brigade sub-officer Bob Penny said: "The driver seems to have either collapsed or fainted at the wheel. The coach hit a bus stop and swerved across the street. It's amazing there were no people injured on the street on a Bank Holiday weekend."