A British lorry driver phoned in sick - after being speared by an eight foot pole.

Jason Ripley, 39, was impaled after driving into a horizontal metal barrier hidden by a bush. As he realised he risked dying he phoned work to apologise.

He told his boss: "I've had a bit of an accident - I'm in a spot of bother."

Jason explained: "There were seven or eight feet of pole sticking out. It was only two or three inches from my heart."

As he was cut out of the vehicle, Jason said he could feel the pole turning inside him.

He said: "Even when they put me in the helicopter there was still about four feet of pole going through me."

Jason was back at work within months and counts himself lucky to be alive.