Gardener, 65, miraculously survives freak chainsaw accident that saw him suffer catastrophic blood loss after he cuts his neck open - just millimetres from his windpipe
A gardener miraculously survived a freak chainsaw accident after cutting his neck open, but missing his windpipe by just millimetres.
Christopher York, 65, said he was saved by a number of lucky coincidences after suffering 'catastrophic blood loss' while working in his garden in Chesterfield, Derbyshire.
The chainsaw had jammed while he was cutting left to right, but rather than kicking back it 'leapt forward and span around' as it followed through a branch, hitting his neck.
The father-of-four described feeling a 'cold wetness' on his front as his shirt was soaked in blood, pouring down as far as his trousers.
But by an enormous stroke of fortune, a specialist vascular surgeon happened to be at the hospital where he was rushed by paramedics - and was able to operate on him, saving his life.
'Had the vascular surgeon not been there, they would have taken me to a hospital where the journey probably would have killed me,' Mr York told the BBC.
Mr York was subsequently informed that he had slashed only a few millimetres from his windpipe and would have quickly bled out if the chainsaw cut a fraction deeper.
'The nice thing was that it didn't actually hurt. It was entirely painless,' he said.
'I didn't know how serious it was, I just thought it was not much more than a paper cut at the time because I couldn't feel anything.
'But then my legs began to buckle. Really at no stage did I feel I was in danger, but I was.'
In another potentially life-saving bit of good fortune, Mr York's wife, Veronika Semeradtova-York, 44, had come home 30 minutes earlier than usual to find her husband bleeding heavily.
She said she would often get a coffee after going to the gym, but on that day the coffee machine had not been working.
A friend of theirs also happened to call by the house to check on the pair at the time. They quickly phoned an ambulance, which arrived within eight minutes.
By this stage, Mr York had lost about two litres of blood.
The well-timed visit of the specialist vascular doctor meant they could go to Chesterfield Royal Hospital rather than having to take him to a major trauma centre in Nottingham or Sheffield.
Mr York said: 'The ambulance driver remembered that a specialist vascular surgeon from Derby was visiting Chesterfield on that day by complete coincidence.
'I remember thinking 'although I don't think this is serious, they seem to and so will I survive this?'.'
Just one month before the accident, Mr York had been encouraged by his wife to get a tetanus jab - which helped stopped him getting infected from the leaves, mud and twigs in his wound.
'Had my wife and friend not come, I would have died,' he said.
'Had the ambulance station not been up the road, they might have been delayed and I could have died of blood loss.'
He added: 'All these things came together. My main question is 'why?'. If God did intervene, why me?'
Mr York expressed his deep gratitude to the staff who had cared for him, saying: 'God bless them all. The thanks of not only me, but my wife and our four children remain with them for eternity. We are a family because of them. There are no words for our gratitude.'
Lisa, a senior sister in the emergency department at Chesterfield Royal Hospital, told the BBC: 'It went like clockwork, there was someone looking over him that day.
'He was very grateful to everyone in the hospital. Thanks to the staff that assembled that day, his wife has a husband and his children have a father.'
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