AN ambulance slid into a tree after the driver lost control yesterday, as black ice caused dangerous driving conditions across the North-East and North Yorkshire.

Two paramedics were not hurt in the crash, in Crook, County Durham, yesterday morning.

Both the North-East Ambulance Service and the Yorkshire Ambulance Service reported very high levels of demand after icy roads and pavements led to a number of road traffic accidents and pedestrians falling over.

A spokeswoman for the North-East Ambulance Service said: “One of our ambulances hit a tree in Crook, but luckily everything is all right.”

A spokeswoman for the Yorkshire Ambulance Service said the weather was causing “extremely hazardous conditions for ambulance crews”.

In Yorkshire, non-emergency patient transport was cancelled for patients due to attend routine appointments at hospital clinics.

In another accident, an Arriva bus skidded on black ice and collided with two parked cars near the Red Lion pub in Dipton, near Consett, shortly after a lorry went out of control and struck a lamppost.

In North Yorkshire, four gritting lorries slid off the road because of the black ice.

No one was hurt in the incidents in Gunnerside, near Richmond, Commondale, on the North York Moors, Harrogate and Skipton.

Elsewhere, a Land Rover pulling an empty cattle trailer overturned after a collision with a lorry at 11.50am, southbound on the A1 at the Catterick Village turn-off.

It is not yet clear if the accident was weather related.