Pensioner in ladder fall

Paramedic Ian Schofield and technician Tim Standing, both from Burnley ambulance station, worked for 10 minutes on Jimmy Murray, 65, when his heart stopped beating after he plunged on to a concrete yard at the rear of his house on Kiddrow Lane, Burnley.

He suffered a fractured skull in the fall at about 5pm yesterday and is in a critical condition on a ventilator in the intensive care unit of Royal Preston Hospital. His wife Violet is at his bedside.

Jimmy, a retired builder and odd job man who suffers from asthma, had been checking repairs to his guttering at his house when neighbour Irene Gallagher heard him fall and saw him lying in the yard.

She said: "I wasn't sure if it was Jimmy or one of my other neighbours who had fallen because they had been working on the guttering. I got a chair and looked over the wall and saw Jimmy on the ground in his yard."

Mr Schofield said: "We got a call that access might be difficult because his wife was out so we called for help from the firefighters. "But when we arrived someone had opened the front door and we went through the house and found him at the bottom of the ladder in the yard. His legs were wrapped inside the bottom of the ladder, he was not breathing and there was no pulse.

"We incubated him with a ventilator and began massaging his heart. When we gave him the third lot of drugs we got an output."

Grandfather Mr Murray was placed on to a spinal board and firefighters helped paramedics to carry him to the ambulance. Burnley General Hospital resuscitation department was alerted to be on stand-by and he was transferred to Royal Preston Hospital last night.

Mrs Gallagher said: "We have been neighbours for about 20 years and great friends. They are a lovely couple. He is a bit of a loveable rogue and very well liked in the area."

Mrs Gallagher's grandchildren described Jimmy as "like a grandfather to them."

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