A YOUNG mother has told how she had to “literally throw” children from a coach which exploded minutes in a major French motorway smash.

Kayleigh Wilkinson, her four-year-old daughter Amelie-Jayde and sister Sarah Dailey were among dozens of young families on their way to Disneyland Paris when the coach was caught up in the terrifying collision just outside Paris on Friday.

The family, from Stockton, escaped unharmed from the National Holidays coach along with everyone else on board but have lost all their belongings after a tanker involved in the collision exploded and the coach caught fire.

A number of tankers were involved in the collision and two people were killed.

Ms Wilkinson, who was travelling on her 27th birthday, said the coach was packed with young children ahead of the half term break and the adults on board had just five minutes to clear the coach before it burst into flames.

Ms Wilkinson said: “Everything went so quick so I don’t know what actually happened – the first I knew was waking up to the front windscreen shattering.

“Everyone was shouting to see if the driver was ok and he managed to get up and kick out the emergency exit at the front.

“The ones at the back were blocked up right against the tanker and it was only because a woman at the back spotted the fire that we knew to get out as fast as we did.

“Me and another bloke were literally throwing children out of the emergency exit.”

The passengers and driver, which included many families from West Yorkshire, waited on the hard shoulder of the motorway for several hours while emergency services dealt with the fire.

Ms Wilkinson said everyone on the bus had lost their luggage and most had lost their travel money and passports.

National Holidays representatives arranged to take the passengers to buy a change of clothes and immigration officials organised emergency passports.

Ms Wilkinson said she and her sister had decided to continue with the trip to Euro Disney for the sake of Amelie-Jayde as the trip is a joint birthday and Christmas present for her.

She added: “My daughter is terrified at getting on another coach, she thinks it will explode. The adults are suffering – everyone is walking round like a zombie and we all keep replaying it in our minds but it’s affecting the kids too.

“We asked Amelie what she wanted to do and she wants to see Mickey and Minnie so that’s what we’ll do.”

A National Holidays spokesman said: “The incident in France was clearly a frightening episode for those involved but all passengers from the coach left the vehicle safely and were unharmed.

“Two other individuals from other vehicles involved did unfortunately lose their lives despite the best efforts of the French emergency services. Our thoughts are with their families.

“Such incidents are, thankfully, rare and we will be working closely with French investigators to establish the facts over the coming days.

“We will continue to communicate directly with all passengers involved and our customer service team on 0844-4778000 will answer any other queries.”