Man rescued in south Shropshire roof fall drama

The incident happened at a farm near to Purlogue and Pentre south of Clun, at 4.15pm yesterday afternoon.

A 66 year old man had reportedly been repairing a metal roof from the inside of a large out building on the farm, when he fell around 30 feet onto a concrete floor.

The building, used to store bales of hay reportedly weighing up to three quarters of a tonne each, were stacked up to 20 feet high from the floor. The man landed in between two stacks of hay and became trapped due to the density of the bales and the extent of his injury.

A responder paramedic was first to arrive at the scene and managed to climb down the bales to reach the man. After carrying out a full assessment, the paramedic found the man had suffered a fractured leg. The paramedic administered pain relief to stabilise his condition and carried out further treatment, whilst HART and fire personnel made their way to the scene as it was established that specialist skills and equipment were required.

The fire service set up rope rescue gear at the top of the bales to enable two HART paramedics to reach the man. Once safely down in between the bales, the paramedics immobilised the man using a specialised stretcher and splinted his leg before he was attached to ropes and pulled up to the top of the bales.

The paramedics and fire personnel carried the man a short distance on top of the bales to a hole in the side of the building. He was then winched down to the ground outside before being airlifted to Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham for further assessment and treatment.

A West Midlands Ambulance Service spokeswoman said: "This was a difficult and complex extrication, taking around two hours to rescue the man from the bales. The excellent team work between the two emergency services ensured he was in safe hands and given expert assistance and treatment throughout the rescue.”