Northampton dad survives cutting throat with angle grinder by less than a millimetre in horror DIY accident

Print manager, Simon Glover, 50, of Grange Park was using a diamond-tipped angle grinder to cut away bricks to make a window aperture bigger.

As he worked his way up from the window sill, the blade got wedged in the brick, spun out of Simon’s hand and caught his face, neck, arm and chest as it fell onto the floor. His injuries included cuts to ligaments and muscles in his neck and to his windpipe.

The dad of four was flown to University Hospital Coventry by the Warwickshire and Northamptonshire air ambulance and received urgent medical care within 22 minutes.

He said: “The saw blade actually grazed my main artery and I was bleeding heavily. If the air ambulance hadn’t been there I would probably have died.

“All of a sudden I realised that I couldn’t breathe and as I choked, blood filled my oxygen mask and my lungs were also filling up with blood.

“I put my hand to my throat immediately. I thought I’d bleed to death. Luckily my brother was in the back garden and he raised the alarm. I managed to walk downstairs to open the door and let him in.

“I just sat on the stairs with my hand on my throat holding it together thinking maybe I will make it because if I had cut my main artery I wouldn’t have got down the stairs. I knew I had cut through my windpipe because as I was breathing I could feel it on my hand.”

He underwent seven hours of surgery to reconstruct his windpipe and staple and stitch the deep cuts he had suffered.

He was put into an induced coma for five days and was discharged from hospital a week after the accident happened.

After two weeks rest he went back to work.

A spokesman for the air ambulance said the injuries he sustained were less than a millimetre between life and death.

“Telling people about how the air ambulance flew me to hospital made me realise what an important part it played in saving my life,” he added.

“If it hadn’t taken me to hospital so quickly and I was still in the back of a land ambulance when my lungs started to fill with blood then I hate to think what would have happened.”

Simon’s accident happened on Good Friday in 2013 but he has now come forward to tell his story on the anniversary of the accident to help raise awareness and funds for his local air ambulance.

Just 13 weeks after his horrific accident he took part in a triathlon and raised £2,500.

“We don’t realise how easily and quickly things can go wrong and if services like the air ambulance didn’t exist I wouldn’t be here to tell my story,” he said.