Horror injury of flood hero

From the Witney Gazette, first published Saturday 28th Jul 2007.

Brave firefighter Jayne Hoadley arrived at a flooding emergency in a fire engine with flashing blue lights - and ended up being taken to hospital the same way after almost severing two fingers.

Ms Hoadley, 43, a retained firefighter based at Oxford's Slade station, was part of a team charged with rescuing residents from part of the flooded Old Prebendal House nursing home in Shipton-under-Wychwood when she suffered the horrific injury.

Wading waist-deep in water in some of West Oxfordshire's worst-ever flooding, a fire door slammed shut on her, crushing two fingers on her left hand. She was so disorientated by the accident that her colleagues initially thought her legs had got caught and tried to pull her out.

A crew from Kidlington fire station used a rescue dinghy to save Ms Hoadley and took her to dry land, before she was driven by fire engine to Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital.

Specialists have yet to decide whether her fingers will be amputated.

Ms Hoadley's team had been working since noon last Friday when they heard part of the elderly people's home was flooded.

She was called to rescue a man and a woman and another woman's dog from residential cottages at the site.

All made it safely - apart from the firefighter, who lives in Fletcher Road, Cowley, and has been a retained firefighter for seven years.

The mother-of-one said: "I was a right girl but the pain was unbelievable.

"It was so painful I didn't know what it was.

"My colleagues thought it was my legs but I was hanging on by my hands - they were hanging from the nails.

"They took me to hospital in the same fire engine I arrived in with flashing blue lights and everything, which was kind of ironic."

"It hasn't put me off, I can't wait to get back to work.

"I have taken the batteries out of my pager because I can't stand it going off and not being able to respond.

"I will always be aware of doors now."

Regardless of the outcome of her injury, Ms Hoadley has been told she can continue to work as a retained firefighter after she has recovered.

But she said one of the most frustrating aspects of her injury has been reading and watching news about the flooding - and not being able to help.

Ms Hoadley was part of the rescue effort during the recent Nuneham Courtenay and Normandy Crescent floods.

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