AN 81-YEAR-OLD woman suffered facial injuries when she was knocked to the ground by a cyclist riding along the pavement like “a bat out of Hell”.

The cyclist asked Beryl Hall if she was hurt and tried to help her up, but then rode away without apologising, she said.

Beryl, a recovering lung cancer patient, was out walking with a friend on Monday evening and had just stepped from an alleyway on to Moss Street, near her Bishophill home, when the cyclist hit her, knocking her to the pavement.

Mrs Hall, who completed a section of the Jane Tomlinson York 10K Run the day before the incident, said: “A friend and I had been for a walk to Knavesmire because we like to keep fit.

“We were just coming out of an alleyway and a cyclist came like a bat out of Hell along the pavement and knocked me flying. I never saw him at all. One minute I was walking along, the next I’m on the floor.

“I had never seen so much blood in my life and it was all coming from my head.”

Because of the blood in her eyes Mrs Hall said she never got to see the cyclist, but her friend said he stopped to ask if she was hurt and tried to help her up but rode away shortly after, without apologising.

An ambulance was called by passer-by Brian Brown. Mrs Hall said she was also helped by a Tesco delivery van driver who bandaged her head. She was taken to York Hospital suffering two black eyes, grazed knees, a sprained wrist and a cut to the head, which needed to be glued back together.

“The girl from Tesco could have saved my life with that bandage,” she said.

“I am very grateful to her.”

Mrs Hall said she was currently waiting for a letter from her doctors on the results of a CT scan following cancer treatment.

“I am trying to live life to the full at the moment and then this happens,” she said.

“I would like to know if he had a granny and how he would feel if this happened to her.

“I think people who cycle on pavements like this should be named and shamed and have their bikes confiscated.” Yorkshire Ambulance Service confirmed it had been called to the scene and had taken a patient to York Hospital.

The cyclist is described as being in his early twenties.