Shropshire farm impaling drama set to be shown on BBC series

It will recall the split second moments when

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The 40 millimetre thick spike had gone straight through the right side of his lower back, across his abdomen and was sticking out of the left side of his stomach after the tractor, with its handbrake not properly applied, slowly pinned him by the forks.

The rescue of Mr Heatley, which happened at Grange Farm in Lyneal, near Ellesmere, will feature on BBC1's Close Calls: On Camera on October 28 at 11.45am.

The scale of the drama is captured when the 52-year-old's neighbour Henry Rook, 23, makes a 999 call to the emergency services, with hardly any signal coverage and on a battery almost drained of power.

Firefighters from Ellesmere will tell how they were faced with an extraordinary rescue operation working with doctors and paramedics from the air ambulance.

Mr Heatley had been removing black plastic from a three-quarter tonne hay bale with his back to the tractor when it rolled forward and slowly skewered him, pinning him to the hay.

"I don't think I applied the handbrake properly on the tractor because I began to feel the fork going into me and there was nothing I could do about it," he said.

"I could feel the prong going through my back and into the hay so I was trapped."

Neighbours heard his shouts for help and Mr Rook managed to get through to the emergency services.

On call firefighters arrived on the farm as paramedic Kerry Hemas and a doctor from the county air ambulance were administering morphine to the farmer.

John Deakin, crew manager at Ellesmere Fire Station, said: "Our initial thoughts were to cut the spike off but it was made of thick and hardened steel and our Holmatro cutting gear wouldn't get through it.

"We considered using acetylene to cut it but that was flawed because the heat would transfer along the metal spike and into Graham's body.

"The only way was to take the prong off the machine and leave it inside Graham while he was taken to hospital."

Working closely with the doctor and ambulance crew, four firefighters held the farmer's body steady while colleagues used WD40 to loosen a nut, clamped it and managed to hammer the prong free.

With the spike sticking out of his body, Mr Heatley was carefully laid on his side by firefighters who put him on to a stretcher.

Within an hour of their arrival, the farmer was being flown to the University Hospital of North Staffordshire where surgeons were waiting to operate to remove the spike which had narrowly missed piercing arteries and organs.

"It was a very pleasing and successful outcome to a quite unusual and difficult incident," added Mr Deakin.

Mr Heatley has recovered well from his ordeal and was back at work within 10 weeks of the accident.