A CHEF has told how a bone in his arm snapped and one of his fingers was almost severed in a freak accident involving a fridge.

Andy Annat said he was trying to help carry a huge commercial fridge down a fire escape at the back of his former North Yorkshire restaurant when the fridge slipped and fell on him.

His right arm was trapped between the fridge and metal fire escape steps, but the fridge was prevented from crushing him against a wall by becoming lodged in the railings.

York Press:

He said his head went into a gap between the motor and the side of the fridge, gashing him under the eye and scraping the back of his head and neck.

His two colleagues assisting him with the fridge managed to release his arm and head.

“I screamed like a pig,” said Andy, 47, who runs Crackerjack BBQ. ‘The larger bone in the arm below the elbow was snapped, with the bone sticking out through the skin.

“Funnily enough, it wasn’t hurting that much at that stage. I managed to put it back into position and was driven to hospital. There I had a four to five hour operation using plates and pins to fix it back into position.

“A cut on my finger was to the bone and I’d severed a tendon, but they’ve been able to repair it and it’s in a splint.”

He said he wanted to say a massive thank you to staff at Harrogate Hospital, where the care, detail, service, food and comfort in The Harlow Ward had been ‘awesome.’ He added: “A big thank you to the amazing surgeon who spent 4.5 hours fixing my arm and saved my finger.”

He said he was now in a lot of pain and pumped with morphine.

Andy said his business specialised in setting up high quality barbecues for major functions across the country, but he had decided to branch out and open The Blues Bar, a restaurant near Betty’s Cafe in Harrogate, about 18 months ago.

He said he decided to end that experiment and concentrate on expanding the firm’s event hospitality work, and had been emptying the restaurant of equipment and furniture when the accident happened.