A telephone engineer has been impaled on a spiked metal railing after falling from a ladder in Plymouth.

The Virgin Media employee was taken to hospital with a section of railing still lodged through his buttock after being carefully cut free by the emergency services.

A witness explained “He was up the ladder doing the cabling when I heard a crash and screaming, I found him tangled in the ladder and impaled on the spike, so I phoned 999. While we waited for the ambulance, I tried to comfort and support him.”

A spokeswoman for the HSE at Bristol said: “We are aware and are making initial enquiries to establish whether there is a case to investigate.”