Five passengers miraculously escaped a head-on collision between two cars in Putney on Monday night.

One woman, 25, was trapped in a car for half an hour with spinal and abdominal injuries while fire crews battled to cut her out.

Two other people were injured in the crash in Putney Hight Street, but none of the injuries are understood to be life-threatening.

Watch manager Winston Douglas, at Wandsworth Fire Station, said: “There was big frontal impact damage on the cars.

“Their injuries would have been a lot more significant in a car not fitted with as many safety features.

"This could have been a totally different story 10 years ago.”

Fire crews were called at 11.10pm to a crash between a Subaru Impreza and a Honda Civic i-VTEC at the junction with Upper Richmond Road.

The Honda contained a family of three men of British Asian origin, along with a 25-year-old female passenger, who was later cut out.

One of the men, 25, had cuts and bruises while a 69-year-old man had an injured wrist.

The driver of the Honda, aged 30, escaped unharmed - as did the 30-year-old male driver of the Subaru.

Fire crews from Wandsworth and Battersea used revolutionary technology to find out how to rescue the woman.

A Mobile Data Terminal told them the locations of the car’s airbag cannisters, which could be potentially dangerous if cut into.

The injured woman was rushed to hospital by an ambulance crew.

Police are now investigating the cause of the crash. Anyone with information should call 0300 123 1212.