A 71-YEAR-OLD woman "skewered" her leg on an 18-inch metal spike in a horror accident as she her tried to step over a small garden fence to visit her neighbour.

Norma Courtier, of Todmorden Road, Burnley, was walking over the two foot high plastic fence into her neighbour's garden, when she lost her balance and fell back, impaling herself on a metal spike supporting the fence.

She had been going to see her neighbour's children when the accident happened.

A neighbour supported Mrs Courtier as her husband Jack called the emergency services.

Fire crews lifted her off the three quarter inch diameter spike and she was taken to Burnley General Hospital for surgery.

Burnley Station officer Steve Cope said: "She got the metal fence pole skewered through her leg in two places. It went through the lower part of her upper leg and the upper part of her lower leg. "We first took her weight and then removed the post from the ground and cut the fence from around it.

"When paramedics arrived we took the decision to remove the spike. It was a shiny metal spike so it had caused a clean wound. We first used bolt croppers to remove the lower part and then pulled the rest back through her leg the way it had entered.

"She was in pain but very brave and never complained. She was more worried about making sure her husband had turned everything off in the house and locked all the doors than she was about herself.

"Our major worry was that she was on warfarin tablets which thinned her blood."

Mrs Courtier, a retired shop assistant, was given oxygen and taken to Burnley General Hospital where surgeons operated on her injuries. Today she was described as "satisfactory" and "recovering fine".

Mr Courtier, a retired printer, said his wife was bright and cheerful in hospital following the operation.

He said: "She hops over the fence many times, but this time she was unlucky and slipped.

"The spike went straight through her calf and made a hell of a wound, but she was very calm."

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