Behn Monley says he feels “extremely lucky” to walk away from a “freak accident” which saw his leg impaled by a tree branch on the weekend.
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The 32-year-old said he was driving at the quarry near Wongarbon on Sunday afternoon when a tree branch went through the bottom of the all-terrain vehicle and through his leg, pinning him to the car.
He described it as a freak accident.
“It doesn’t happen all the time … you don’t realise how quick everything can happen,” Mr Monley said.
“It’s a freak accident … I feel extremely lucky, it could have gone through my shoulder even, if it was just a different angle.”
Mr Monley said he was only travelling a couple of kilometres an hour when he went over a bump and the tree branch came through the floor, through his leg and into the back of the buggy, and pinned him there.
“I couldn’t move but I had to hold myself up to keep the pressure off because every time I drop, my leg it would push back and go further onto the stick,” Mr Monley said.
He said he was lucky it didn’t go through his shoulder, chest or skull.
“I was literally only going a couple of kilometres an hour, I wasn’t doing anything silly, it just came through, I was literally wedged in tight,” he said.
“There was a young fella and I was just trying to keep him calm … I said, “it’s all good, I’m okay, go get your mum it’s okay, and call the ambulance”.
Mr Monley said when emergency services arrived they had to assess how best to free him.
“I was in pain until the ambulance got there, I had to hold myself up so I wouldn’t skewer myself more … If I let myself slump that’s when it hurt,” he said.
“From my knowledge instead of cutting the stick, they cut my leg off the stick.”
Mr Monley was taken to Dubbo Hospital and where he went into surgery and was treated. He was released on Monday afternoon.
“I’m extremely lucky … it missed all my tendons and it ripped a vein in half or something but no tendon no major arteries damage, it just tore a big chunk of muscle.”
Orana Mid-Western Police District Inspector Dan Skelly said it took two hours for emergency services to free him.
Inspector Skelly said emergency services found the man in severe pain, with the tree branch about 30 millimetres wide and about 1.5 metres long having fully penetrated the man’s right leg.
The incident prompted police to appeal with drivers of these type of vehicles to take “extreme care”.