AN eight-year-old boy impaled himself on a metal gate spike when he fell off a garden wall as he played.
The youngster was stuck on the railing for more than 15 minutes while firefighters cut through it with a hacksaw.
He was taken to Sunderland Royal Hospital with the spike - cut down to five inches - stuck through his left arm.
The boy, who has not been named, was playing in the garden of a relative's house in The Briars, Castletown, Sunderland, when the accident happened at 7pm on Monday.
Station Officer Alan Gash, of Fulwell fire station, said: "He was very brave. He was conscious throughout, talking to his mam. He realised the predicament he was in.
"It went through his arm near his elbow. He is a very lucky lad in as much as where he was impaled did not involve a major organ. It could have been a lot worse.
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