A FARMER got impaled on a tractor’s hay baling spike.

Bleddyn Hughes, 53, had to be lifted off the spike by rescuers after the horrific accident at his farm in Bodedern, Anglesey.

Despite the pain, he’d managed to use his mobile phone to ring for help at about 11am yesterday.

Paramedics, a Wales Air Ambulance crew and firefighters were called out. Once off the spike, he was flown to Ysbyty Gwynedd in Bangor, where doctors operated on him.

A Wales Air Ambulance crew spokesman said: “A tractor had rolled forward and he had been caught between its spiked grabber and a bale of hay.

“He was impaled by a spike in the right leg above the knee. It had not penetrated the whole leg.”

He added: “He rang for help himself on his mobile. We got there just after the land-based ambulance crew.

“He was stable and he was chatting throughout. We lifted him off the spike. He was very lucky – a few inches higher in his leg and it would have been even more serious.”

North Wales Fire and Rescue Service was alerted at 11.01am. A spokeswoman said: “He had hurt himself and there was some work to be done to get him out.

“We helped release him with the assistance of paramedics. The decision was taken to airlift him to hospital.”

Farmers Union of Wales member and friend, Bob Parry, said: “These injuries do happen on farms. I send my best wishes to Bleddyn and wish him a speedy recovery.

“I am always telling my son that these spikes need to be right up to the top or on the floor, they can be dangerous and it is very easy for accidents to happen.

Mr Parry added: “This has come at a difficult time with lambing season upon us. Bleddyn will be needing extra support on the farm.”

Bleddyn’s brother Eifion thanked the Wales Air Ambulance crew for helping his family for a second time – last year it took his 39-year-old son to hospital after he was gored by a bull.

Eifion said: “Farming is a lonely, dangerous profession. Wales Air Ambulance helped us with my son last year too. It is a vital charity.”

Bleddyn, Eifion and another brother Aled are the sons of the former Farmers’ Union of Wales president Hubert Robert Môn Hughes OBE, affectionately known as HRM, who died aged 85 in September 2009.

*article taken from dailypost website*