My face shattered into a million pieces

John Hearle, 47, of Branch Road, Mellor Brook, was just inches from death when the microlight he was piloting crash-landed in a field near to his home.

He said: "Doctors can't believe I'm not dead or brain damaged and that I haven't lost my sight."

John bore much of the impact on the right-hand side of his face, breaking his jaw-bone in four places and shattering all the bones from his nose up to his forehead.

The builder, who has more than 20 years flying experience, crashed when he attempted to bring the aircraft down near Further Lane, Mellor, after the engine stalled.

But instead of reaching the safety of a large stretch of grass, the microlight plummeted so quickly that John and his passenger came to rest in a thick hedge - with both suffering horrific injuries.

Now, following countless operations, John is vowing to return to work in the next year - and even get behind the controls of a microlight again.

An Air Accident Investigation report last week revealed that the crash, at 7pm onApril 14, was caused by a lack of fuel going to the engine, due to a kink in the fuel pipe, which caused it to stall.

John spent five days in a coma but then, during a two-and-a-half week spell in the Royal Preston Hospital, doctors were able to replace much of shattered bone in his face with titanium plates. More plates were inserted into his right wrist, which was broken in six places.

His time in hospital is hazy to John, but wife Wendy later told him his head swelled to the size of a large pumpkin as it filled with fluid.

He said: "From my top jaw upwards the bones were shattered in to a million pieces.

"When they let me out of hospital my jaw was wired shut and the doctors drilled a hole just above my right eye. The metal wires ran up the side of my jaw and poked through a hole above my eye for about seven weeks."

John is facing an operation at the start of next month to rebuild his right eye socket.

His injuries mean that his right eye socket is smaller than his left and is slightly sunken back in to his face.

He said: "They are going to cut round the back of my head and peel my face forward. Just the thought is enough to put any one off!

"They will rebuild my eye socket and hopefully put my nose back were it should be as well.

"Once they have done that I go in again to Preston next July and they will realine (spell check spell check) my eyes and tighten the muscles behind them.

"Because I took such a bang on my face my right eye now goes to the right if I try and look at anything. It makes reading very difficult.

"At the moment it feels like its someone else's face, as if someone is pushing it back in to my head "

The problem with his eyes has meant John has been able to work very little over the past eight months and he knows he faces another year before he is potentially back to full fitness.

On the day of the crash he had taken off from an airstrip in Samlesbury, near to Roach Bridge Paper Mill.

But John, who has a daughter and young grandson, said he remembered little else about the accident that left him fighting for his life.

He said: "All I can remember is going up and the next thing we were hurtling along the ground and I just pulled the control bar towards me to make the front of the microlite stay on the ground.

"We were doing about 50 or 60 miles per hour and we went between two trees that were about two feet apart before ending up in the hedge. If I'd have been 18-inches either way I'd be dead.

"If I had cleared the trees everything would have been okay but I don't know what happened and why I didn't make the field.

"Apparently, after the crash I stood up and turned to my passenger but he just looked at me and told me I best sit down because my face was mess.

"If the woman who lives nearby to the field hadn't seen me come down I would not be here today because we could have been stuck there for days. In that sense I'm very lucky.

"As far as microlites go I enjoy it and I intend to go out again."