A TEENAGER has told how he nearly bled to death after a horrific motorbike accident severed his leg. Luke Bristow spent four months in hospital after the accident which cost him his leg and severely damaged his left arm which was only held in place by his leather jacket.

Annie Davidson

A TEENAGER has told how he nearly bled to death after a horrific motorbike accident severed his leg.

Luke Bristow spent four months in hospital after the accident which cost him his leg and severely damaged his left arm which was only held in place by his leather jacket.

Now the 19-year-old is speaking out to urge other young riders to slow down and pay attention when riding in a bid to prevent other tragedies.

Mr Bristow, of Humber Way, Witham, is fronting a national safety campaign which will travel around the UK delivering the message to young riders and warning them “it could happen to you.”

Yesterday he told how he had been to a regular bikers' meet in Rayleigh, south Essex, and was travelling along the A127 when he crashed into three bollards.

He was riding a 600cc sports motorbike which should have been restricted due to his age but because it had not been was capable of 175mph.

The former Bramston School pupil remembers nothing of the accident but admitted he must have been going too fast when his bike ploughed into the bollards on July 11, 2006.

He said: “The crash severed my left leg - it landed on the other side of the road about 10metres away.

“There were two plasterers driving past who two weeks earlier had done an intensive medical training course and they saw the smoke from my bike.

“They turned round and came back. They could see me in the distance, trying to stand up but without my leg I kept falling over.

“They ran over and applied a lot of pressure to my leg and made a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.”

Mr Bristow was also in luck because an ambulance was on its way back to Basildon Hospital was close to the accident scene and stopped to treat the severely injured teenager.

Surgeons were unable to re-attach Mr Bristow's leg and he said a friend who watched as it was picked up and put into a bag was “still affected by it today.”

He needed a seven pint blood transfusion and a nine hour operation to re-build his arm, which he still cannot fully use.

A former construction worker, Mr Bristow is currently signed off work and said he had become depressed about his injuries some months after the crash.

But he said the effect on his parents and four brothers had been “huge” and added: “I have never seen my family so distressed. It has had quite an impact.

“I am looking forward from now on and have to accept it whether my arm gets better or not.

“I am positive person and I won't let any of this stop me. I have been asked to go dry slope snow boarding and I am going to give it a go - I am going to keep trying to do stuff.”