DISTRICT councillor Chris McFarling is counting himself lucky after surviving a horrific fall with only a badly broken leg.

Cllr McFarling was pruning a tree in St Briavels when the stem of a branch sprung back and hit him in face, knocking him off a ladder.

He fell 16 feet in a ‘parachute jump’ but smashed his right leg below the knee so badly that he needed five hours in surgery to knit it back together.

Cllr McFarling said: “My right leg is completely shattered. They (Gloucestershire Royal Hospital) have put a cage around it, three rods in my leg and ten pins through it. I was working, trying to make a tree safe for the Forest Schools.

“They play in the forest and they have a little area in St Briavels they go to.

“A big branch was almost coming off.

“To get it down, I went around the back to cut the stem it was hanging on.

“This stem swung out into my face. I stepped off the ladder and tried to do a parachute jump. I broke my leg but my spine and head were undamaged, thankfully. It was about a 15 or 16 foot drop.”

He was rushed to A&E and spent three days in plaster while the surgeons worked out how to piece his leg back together.

“They put my foot back into place because it was just hanging off and the tibia was split from the ankle to the knee – the whole thing.”

Yet, despite the horrific injury he suffered, Cllr McFarling, who is the deputy leader of the Forest of Dean authority and Cabinet member for Planning Policy, Performance and Shared Working and Climate Emergency, said that the incident could have been far worse.

“My first thought when landing was ‘great’ because I had not got a head injury or been paralysed,” he added.

And he thanked the staff of the hospital saying: “The operation was for five hours and I can only say how grateful I am to the NHS.

Cllr McFarling was due to deliver two reports to last Thursday’s Cabinet meeting at the council offices, butdespite still being able to use a computer and managing to get around on crutches, the district authority refused him entry to the building.

The Green councillor added: “They risk assessed me as not fit enough to go to the council offices.”

This was because the council thought he would not be able to get out of the building quickly in his current state if there was an emergency, such as a fire.