TRAVEL agent Helen Beaumont had a miraculous escape when a 38-ton lorry smashed into a bridge and landed on a footpath in front of her.

Shocked Mrs Beaumont, 51, just missed being crushed by the lorry. She went back to close a window at her house seconds before the accident under the Chalfont and Latimer railway bridge, yesterday morning.

The mother-of-two, of Amersham Road, Little Chalfont, was about to walk along the footpath to go to work at Rendezvous Travel Group, Station Road, Little Chalfont, when the vehicle spun out of control before ending up on its side by railings, right in front of her.

She said: "If I would have been there seconds earlier, I would have been dead. I actually went back into the house to shut the window and it saved my life.

"The two men in front ran out of the way. They could have been hit as well. I was very shaken and in tears. I just saw the whole thing in front of my eyes."

John Allen, of Bedford Avenue, Little Chalfont, who heard the crash from his home, added: "A quarter of an hour earlier school children would have been walking through."

The lorry, which was carrying 28 tons of cardboard, was travelling to Amersham when the incident happened at Station Road, Little Chalfont.

Police say the driver scrambled from the passenger side of the lorry unscathed.

PC Michael Sapwell, who was at the scene, said: "The lorry hit the bridge coming down towards Amersham.

"The impact, as the bridge was on the angle, caused it to topple over. The reasons why are to be investigated."

Cars were at a standstill in the surrounding areas of Little Chalfont as Station Road was cordoned off.

The police were expected to spend a whole day clearing the wreckage.