HE fell out of a tree and broke nine bones before bouncing into a bramble bush from which he had to be “pruned” free by ambulance staff – but this York man still considers himself lucky.

Grateful Barry Potter, from Acomb, presented the two medics who treated him at the scene with a pair of secateurs and two fruit trees as a thank you for their help following his fall.

Mr Potter, 66, was up a ladder pruning a tree on the banks of a pond at Mayfields Nature Reserve in Dringhouses, when he lost his footing, falling about 20 feet.

He said: “I landed on the ground but I went back up in the air like a Jack-in-the-box and landed in vegetation on the high part of the bank, right up hard against some bramble bushes.

“I broke four vertebrae, four ribs and a shoulder blade.”

Mr Potter, who is chairman of York Natural Environment Trust, said he often suffered bumps and scrapes as a horticulturalist, but admitted the landing was enough to “make his eyes water”.

“It was jolly painful but there was also the embarrassment of falling while doing pruning, which I always warn people about. I should have worn a harness. When you ignore your own advice that’s when accidents happen.”

His injuries back in September 2010 saw him spend two weeks in Hull Royal Infirmary before having to wear a neck brace which he said made him look like “one of Darth Vader’s stormtroopers”.

However, more than a year later, Mr Potter turned up at the Huntington Road Ambulance Station on Wednesday to thank paramedics Chris Bell and Brian Luker for rescuing him from the brambles, and present them with the secateurs.

Mr Bell recalled how he found his patient despite being “barely visible” in the bushes.

He said: “We were using TuffCuts which are a type of scissors used for cutting through clothing. All ambulance crews carry them but they aren’t really designed for cutting through hawthorn and bramble bushes.

“He was lucky. It was about 20 foot and the equivalent of falling from the ridge of your average house roof. I’m just glad he’s made a full recovery.”

Mr Potter said: “The guys from the ambulance service said I was lucky and looked like I had “got away with it”. They said it was my lucky day and that I should buy a lottery ticket. I didn’t, though, because the best thing for me was just escaping with the injuries I had.”