A cyclist was hospitalised after hitting a wire snare which someone had strung at waist height across a path. Ian Davies was left with multiple fractures after the boobytrap caused him to somersault over his handlebars and land on his head, splitting his safety helmet in two.
41-year-old from Deeside in Flintshire suffered concussion, grazes, a broken collarbone and three broken ribs in the incident, which occurred alongside the local Amazon warehouse near Deeside Industrial Park at around 4pm on Tuesday, February 21. The Airbus worker - who had to be driven to Countess of Chester Hospital by car due to ongoing strike action by ambulance workers - said he has no memory of the hour following his accident.
“The first thing I remember is being on the floor and waking up surrounded by three or four people telling me not to move,” said Ian, who was helped by a passing runner - luckily also a first aider. "My helmet was split and I had grazes on my legs but at that stage I didn’t know what had happened. As I came round, I began feeling pain under my cycling top."
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A nearby fellow cyclist called Val described the scene to NorthWalesLive. "One second he was cycling past me, the next he was on the floor,” said the 66-year-old.
"I thought, ‘Oh God, what’s happened here?’ He was travelling quite fast and hit the wire with some force, landing on his head and shoulder - I dread to think what would have happened if he hadn’t been wearing a helmet.
"I think he was knocked out cold as, initially, he was unresponsive. After a while, he was able to say his name and date of birth but he couldn’t remember what had happened.”
She added that, had Ian not overtaken her, it could have been her who'd ended up in hospital - or worse. The trap had been made from a strand of wire pulled from an adjacent fence and wrapped around a post on the other side of the path.
It was placed at waist height and was thought by some to be an attempt to steal passing cyclists' bikes. North Wales Police were called and witnesses reported seeing three youths cycling off shortly beforehand, only to return shortly afterwards.
However, it is not known if they had any involvement. A police spokesperson has asked anyone who witnessed the incident, or has any information, to contact officers on 101, or via the website quoting reference A026360.
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