A FARMER who was skewered through his hips on a metal pole, and was left hanging upside down for four hours after a car accident, is recovering in hospital.

And now, Daniel Lang, aged 23, from Monkwood Farm Cottages, near Hanbury, is able to sit up and have a joke.

His grandmother, Joan Lang, who has been at his bedside, said he was very stiff, but sitting up and having a joke with friends at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Redditch. "He's had plenty of visitors - too many at this early stage, I think," said Mrs Lang.

Early on Thursday, his Vauxhall Astra slid off the road into the ditch where the pole had been dumped on isolated Tyrell's Lane in Lower Bentley, near Hanbury.

It pierced him through his hips and left him hanging upside down. Two workers about to start a shift noticed debris on the road at about 3am and stopped to investigate. They found Mr Lang and called the fire brigade who made practice cuts on another piece of tubing before they started the delicate operation.