An 83-YEAR-OLD woman was today being treated for gunshot wounds, after a dramatic shooting at a village near Selby.

Police sealed off an area around Wheeland Road, Eggborough, at 12.45pm on Saturday, after being alerted to a shooting.

Wheeland Road resident Joanne Ashworth, 32, said she watched the drama unfold from an upstairs window in her home. She said the incident had taken place in a farm field opposite her house where there is a farmhouse and outbuildings.

She said: "At first there were three police officers crawling across the field and they went around all the outbuildings.

"After about five minutes they came running back across the fields with somebody over their shoulder.

"They had to keep swapping her between them, they must have been tired because the field was quite big." The officers carried the injured woman to waiting paramedics, who took her to hospital.

Ms Ashworth said she had previously understood the farmhouse to be a derelict property, adding that she had been shocked by the incident.

She said: "You really don't expect these things to happen. This is such a quiet village, things just don't happen here.

"It was such a surreal sight, you only see things like that on the TV, you don't expect to see it on your doorstep."

An 81-year-old man was arrested on Saturday in connection with the incident. The man was later sectioned under the Mental Health Act, and taken to a local hospital.

Updated: 14:32 Monday, April 04, 2005