Man's hand crushed in Whitchurch area farm accident

A man in his 20s was left with a crushed hand after becoming trapped in farm equipment near Whitchurch. His right hand got stuck in a silage wagon yesterday morning.

His colleague at Rose Barn, Ash Parva, started to cut through the machine before emergency services arrived to try and release the man's lower arm from between a bar and the main body of the wagon.

Firefighters arrived after 10.30am and used specialist equipment to prise apart the machine and free the arm.

Medics attended to his injury and put his arm in a splint before he was air lifted to University Hospital North Staffordshire.

Firefighters said the man was conscious throughout but he had lost a lot of blood.

Watch manager Mike Beach from Whitchurch was the officer in charge of the incident. He said: "The man got his hand trapped between the conveyor system and the main body of the machine. The conveyor was moving and somehow his arm got caught.

"It trapped his hand and he got an injury. I am not a medic but it looked quite bad. There was a lot of blood loss and he was attended to by the ambulance crew.

"His hand was quite flat from the wrist and there was a wide open wound."

A spokesman for West Midlands Ambulance Service said: "We took the call at about 10.30am yesterday morning.

"It was an injury to his right hand and lower arm. It was pretty badly injured. His arm was put into a splint."

A spokesman for the Health and Safety Executive, said: "We are aware of the incident and carrying out initial enquiries."

No-one at Rose Barn was available to comment.