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A cyclist came within inches of being crushed to death when she was dragged under the wheels of a lorry near Oxford Circus in rush hour.

The woman, in her thirties, suffered serious leg injuries in the collision, which happened at 6.15pm yesterday at the junction of Mortimer Street and Langham Place.

The woman, whose bike was left crushed under the lorry with its lights still on, was treated at the scene by paramedics and a trauma doctor from London’s Air Ambulance. She was taken by road ambulance to the Royal London hospital in Whitechapel.

Miriam Recio, a waitress in Starbucks near the scene, said: “She was cycling along when she was hit by a lorry. She was screaming and her leg was bleeding badly. I think it was broken.”

A 53-year-old man from the BBC, who asked not to be named, said: “The bike was under the lorry with the light still flashing. She was against the wall of the building surrounded by people.”

A Met Police spokesman said: “Police were called at 6.15pm to a collision involving a truck and a woman. She was taken to hospital with a foot injury.” No arrests have been made.The incident was the third serious cycling accident in two days in London.

On Tuesday Brian Holt, a porter at Mile End Hospital, was killed on a cycle superhighway in Mile End Road after colliding with a lorry. On the same day, another cyclist, a man in his sixties, collided with a coach in Southampton Row, and today remained critically ill in hospital with serious head injuries.

The number of cyclists seriously injured in London rose 18 per cent last year to 657. Yesterday Boris Johnson unveiled a £35 million safer cycling programme that will include full or semi-segregation along a route between Bow and Aldgate. A new north-south route between Elephant and Castle and King’s Cross via Blackfriars bridge will be “substantially segregated”.