By Phil Colemanand Matthew Legg

Last updated 11:14, Saturday, 06 September 2008

A man has died after a horrifying head-on crash involving a car and a people carrier carrying several pensioners on the A75 near Gretna.

• Images: the vehicles involved

The people carrier involved in the crash

The 85-year-old driver of the Rover car died in the Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary last night. His 82-year-old wife remained in a critical condition earlier today.

Their names have not yet been released, but police do not believe they live in the Dumfries and Galloway area.

All seven passengers in the people carrier were taken to the Cumberland Infirmary, Carlisle, with minor injuries, including broken bones, cuts and bruises. None of them were in a critical condition.

Police, fire, and ambulance crews raced to the scene, a stretch of the A75 half a mile west of Gretna just before 2.30pm yesterday. The two occupants of the Rover were cut free from the wreckage of their vehicle by firefighters and flown to hospital by air ambulance.

The other vehicle, a Toyota Previa, came to rest at the bottom of a steep grassy bank amid trees.

Kevin Hodgson, lead paramedic with the Pride of Cumbria Air Ambulance, said his crew treated a woman in her 80s at the scene and during the flight to hospital in Dumfries while the second casualty, her husband, was taken to the same hospital by a Scottish air ambulance.

He said: “We know that the husband of the woman we treated was taken to the same hospital.

The Scottish helicopter was called in and we got a call to ask if we could assist. The lady involved was in her 80s and had multiple injuries.”

One fire crew from Gretna, two from Annan, and a major rescue vehicle from Dumfries were called to the scene of the accident, with fire-fighters initially administering oxygen to some of the people who were in the people carrier.

Six of the seven people in the people carrier also had to be released by fire crews.

They were working at the scene until 5.15pm.

The A75 was closed to traffic for several hours as police accident investigators worked at the scene.

The road was reopened this morning.

Sergeant Alan Ruddick, of Dumfries & Galloway Police, said: “We are appealing to anybody who was on that stretch of road at the time, or who saw the crash, to get in touch.”

The people carrier bore the logo of the St John Ambulance group. A spokesman said yesterday that it did not belong to the organisation though it may have sponsored it in some way.

In an unrelated accident yesterday afternoon three vehicles were involved in a smash on the northbound approach to Junction 44 of the M6, but none of the motorists involved suffered serious injury. A Cumbria Police spokesman said it was probable that the heavy rain may have been a factor in causing the crash.