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Bedtime stories for TV newsman Andy

Adam Derbyshire
30/ 5/2007

AS Andy Crane describes the operation to fix his broken hip, it sounds more like a DIY project.

"What they do is get a very long screw and hold the two pieces together", said the anchorman who presents news on our sister TV station Channel M.

"Then there is a plate which runs down the side of my femur bone to reinforce it, which has three or four screws into the upper part of my thigh bone. The crack is across the join from the top of the femur to the ball. It cracked and separated."

This was the injury which stopped Andy just 400m short of the finish line of the 10km BUPA Great Manchester Run.

Andy, 43, of Charlesworth, said: "My left leg gave way underneath me and I rolled across Chester Road like a sack of potatoes feeling horribly embarrassed.

"I thought I had cramp or I had tripped. Then I tried to get up twice and couldn't. Some Good Samaritan picked me up and I hobbled to the side of the road, but I couldn't put any weight on my leg."

A paramedic examined Andy, believing he may have a dislocated hip. Efforts were then made to put him in a wheelchair and take him to the finish line.

But he was in too much pain to get his left leg on to the foot rest.

He added: "The surgeon said I might have chipped my hip bone, say, five years ago - bashed it and thought nothing of it. Then for the last four or five months, I have been pounding the road training for this run. Suddenly it just went."

For now, Andy is in MRI, receiving sympathetic attention from wife, Caroline, and his three daughters, aged 13, 12 and nine.

Doctors say he can go home only when he can climb stairs safely with a pair of crutches. He hopes to be back reading bulletins at Channel M before too long, but it may be months before he is driving and some time before he is pounding the streets with his microphone doing vox pops.

CLICK on the video link below to see Andy talking about his accident with Channel M's Heather Stott ...