A SCHOOLGIRL was rushed to hospital after part of her bike’s handlebars became embedded in her chest yesterday afternoon.

The ten-year-old became impaled on the brake lever after falling onto her bicycle while playing at her grandparents’ home.

The lever pierced the right-hand side of her chest and was protruding from her back, near her shoulder blade.

The accident happened at about 2pm in Larches Road, Durham City.

Roofer Andrew Whitfield, who was working on the house next door, said: “We saw the ambulance and heard there had been an accident where a little girl had been impaled on her handlebars.”

Paramedics gave the girl pain relief while firefighters from Durham City fire station helped to free her from the bike.

Crew manager Paul Hindmoor said: “She had been putting her bike away when she fell.

“The brake lever was totally embedded in her chest. I could see the end of it protruding through her back, but it had not broken the skin and there was hardly any blood at all.”

The fire crews used specialist equipment to cut the handlebars in half so she could be taken to hospital for surgery to remove them.

Mr Hindmoor said: “She was very calm. She had been administered pain relief, but wasn’t crying, even when we were cutting the handlebar, which came apart with a ‘snap’.

“Half of the handlebars were still attached to her when they put her in the ambulance and the brake lever was still inside her.

“I couldn’t believe it.

She has been really brave.”

The Great North Air Ambulance was called, and hovered overhead, but the girl was taken to the University Hospital of North Durham by road.

Her injuries are not thought to have been life-threatening.

Mr Hindmoor said: “Luckily, I think it has missed her lung and everything and she was breathing okay.

“She has been unlucky to have fallen, but lucky in the way it went in.”