A WORKER had to be rescued by ambulance staff and firefighters after he began to suffer back spasms while working almost 30 feet above a busy motorway link.

The man in his 40s was working as part of the team renovating the aerial section of the M5/M6 link at Great Barr near West Bromwich at about 11.50am this morning when he suffered a muscle spasm in his back while bending down to pick up a nail.

A spokesman from West Midlands Ambulance service said: “As if being unable to move wasn’t bad enough, the man was on a platform almost 10 metres off the ground.

“The initial crew used a stair case to get up to the man and started to provide pain relief.”

He said paramedics looked after the man until a Hazardous Area Response Team specially trained to work at height arrived at the scene.

“They provided additional pain relief and got the man into a ‘Mibbs’ stretcher which allows them to manoeuvre the man more easily at height,” he said.

“They then worked seamlessly with the West Midlands Fire Service Technical Rescue Team to get the man off one platform onto another where he could be placed onto a cherry picker machine which then lowered him to the ground.”

He paid tribute to the teams who worked together to ensure the worker was rescued as quickly and safely as possible.

“This was an excellent example of close working between the two specialist teams that allowed a patient to be rescued from a precarious position and taken to hospital in a timely manner,” he said The worker was taken to Sandwell Hospital for treatment.