Dad-of-three nearly bleeds to death in freak accident in new home hours after getting keys

A dad-of-three from Swansea had a dramatic moving day experience after a freak accident almost cost him his life.

Scott Lee had barely had the keys to his new home in the Birchgrove area of Cardiff for 24 hours before putting his foot through a pane of glass and nearly bleeding to death.

The 30-year-old was hanging up a banner to celebrate his wife's birthday when the accident happened. He severed his Achilles tendon and cut a main artery supplying blood to his leg.

Neighbours said his scream was so loud that they thought someone was being attacked. They, and a nurse who happened to be passing by, came to his aid and Scott survived the incident.

His leg will now be in plaster for several weeks and he may walk with a limp in the future, but Scott said he is incredibly lucky to be alive.

Recalling the horrific events of Saturday 20 August, Scott said: "I was re-doing the house from top to bottom myself. The beauty [of the house] is the fact my mother-in-law lives four doors down, my wife's gran and auntie live next door, and then there's us. We are all together as a family."On the Friday I'd put all the glass doors out into the front garden and my brother was going to remove them and take them to the tip. On the Saturday it was my wife Paige's 30th birthday.

"I woke up at 8.30am in my in-laws' house and walked over to the new house, with just my sliders on my feet, to put a banner up on the front to surprise her."As I went to put the banner on the window with a scissors and Sellotape, I had to lean across so I stood on one of the doors which I'd stacked up. But the scissors slipped out of my hand.

"I instinctively readjusted my feet and my right foot went straight through a pane of glass."

Rather than keeping his right foot where it was, as an "automatic reaction" Scott pulled it out of the glass and severed an artery in the process.

He was unable to stem the bleeding and so hobbled down the road in a desperate attempt to seek help.

He said: "I looked down at the gash and it was huge. I had to hop a small wall to try and get the four doors down to my wife"I made it two houses down and screamed for her and thankfully she came out.

"I got drained really, really quickly and I felt like I was going to die. I've seen too many TV programmes where people had cut an artery, bled out, and not lived to tell the tale.

"I told my wife and my kids that I loved them as I wasn't sure if I'd see them again."

By extraordinary luck, minutes after the accident happened, a mental health nurse happened to drive by and saw Scott and his family in distress. Laura Hayes stopped to help them.

She said: "I was running late to take my daughter to her horse riding lesson when, by pure fluke, I saw him.

"I wondered what on earth was going on, but when I saw this river of blood I knew I had to help. He was bleeding so heavily that 30 minutes later he wouldn't have been with us."Laura raised Scott's leg, created a tourniquet to stem the bleeding and put dressings on it - while another neighbour came to help too. Scott's family then rushed him to hospital.

Surgeons at Morriston Hospital carried out an operation that took four-an-a-half-hours to fix Scott's Achilles, and his leg has been put in plaster.

However there is a chance he may never walk properly again and have a permanent limp.

"When I was operated on I thought they'd need to amputate my foot," Scott said.

"When I woke up the first thing I did was look down to see if it was still there."

He added that everyone who came to his aid were his "heroes".

Scott will need six to 12 weeks of physiotherapy and during that time will not be able to work in his job as a forklift driver for B&Q.

While he feels very lucky to still be alive, his dream home renovation plans have been put on hold.

He added that he is only entitled to statutory sick pay, which means all the money saved for the renovations will now go to pay the mortgage.

Days after the accident Laura, the nurse who came to Scott's aid, set up a fundraising page to help "alleviate pressures" on the family.

"I just feel so sorry for them. Having purchased their first family home this should have been an exciting time for them but it has turned into a nightmare," she said.

"Scott may need further surgeries, there are lots of unknowns from this accident, and stress levels are high."