Dozens of paramedics lined the street as they paid their respects to a 'beautiful and kind' paramedic killed in a horror crash on the A21.

Alice Clark, 21, who who had only joined South East Coast Ambulance Service in November last year, died in the accident near Tonbridge on January 5.

Watch: Paramedics stand side by side at Alice Clark's funeral in Sittingbourne

Miss Clark from Newington, near Sittingbourne was a front passenger and died at the scene. Paramedic Edward Riding, who was driving, was airlifted to hospital with serious multiple injuries. He is now in a stable condition but faces a long recovery.

Student paramedic Megan Kuhn, who was in the back, suffered head injuries. The driver of a cement lorry also involved in the crash suffered minor injuries. The road was closed for several hours while crash investigators carried out investigations.

Miss Clark was a former pupil of Rainham Mark Grammar School. She left in 2018 and went to the University of Greenwich to study to become a paramedic, graduating in July 2021.

Her funeral service was held at the Garden of England Crematorium, Sheppey Way, Bobbing, at 10.30am this morning. (Thursday, Feb24)

SECAmb staff provided a guard of honour along the drive, while an air ambulance hovered in the skies above, as the hearse approached the chapel. All staff wore face masks at the request of Miss Clarke's family.

Colleagues from across Kent and London stood in silence as the hearse carrying the young ambulance worker drove by.

They were joined by a delegation of firefighters, two London Ambulance motorcycles and an ambulance.

As people stood on the road side the heavens opened in a deluge, with one colleague commenting: "It's as if God is crying himself."

Her heartbroken parents previously paid tribute to her and said she had loved working for the ambulance service.

They said: "Alice was so excited to qualify as a paramedic and looked forward to every shift.

"She was a beautiful, kind, fun-loving daughter, sister and granddaughter. She loved to travel. Anyone who met her loved her.

"She will be missed more than words can say by family and friends."

Giovanni Mazza, her manager at the Paddock Wood Operating Unit where Alice was based, added: “Although she had only been with us for a short time, Alice was already very much part of our ambulance family and will be remembered as a kind and dedicated paramedic.

"She will be deeply and sadly missed by her colleagues. We are sending our love and prayers to her family and friends."

At the opening of the inquest into her death at County Hall, Maidstone, last month the coroner heard that the ambulance had been responding to an emergency call at the time.

It crashed into the back of a cement mixer in a lay-by on January 5 at 8.16pm on the A21 near Tonbridge. It is thought the ambulance had entered the lay-by by mistake instead of taking the next exit.

It hit a kerb then the back of a parked Scania lorry before bouncing off and embedding itself in the back of the parked Volvo cement tanker, in which the driver was inside.