Man left hanging upside down for FIVE days after he's impaled on fence has both legs amputated

A man whose legs became impaled on a fence says he spent five days 'hanging upside down' while his cries for help went unheard.

Dale Whitehurst had to have both his legs amputated following the terrifying ordeal, which left him hallucinating in the baking heat with no food or water for a total of 112 hours.

The 44-year-old said he had tried to take a short cut over a seven-foot metal palisade security fence while walking home near to Wolstanton Retail Park in Stoke-on-Trent last June.

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As he attempted to climb over it, Dale slipped, sending metal spikes straight through both of his ankles. He told the Mirror that he smashed his head, knocking him out, while his jeans twisted around his ankles, cutting the blood flow to his feet.

“When I woke I was upside down impaled and could not feel my legs. I could see my mobile but it was out of reach," Dale said.

“I tried to free myself but the pain was unreal and my jeans just twisted tighter around my ankles.”

Dale had to have both of his legs removed (Dale Whitehurst)

While falling in and out of consciousness, Dale attempted to shout for help - but the fence he was stuck on was obscured by trees and his cries could not be heard.

“I could hear people walking by and I screamed for help but no one came,” he said.

Dale said he began to hallucinate as temperatures during the day soared to 22C. At one point, he managed to grab an empty coke can, which he urinated into and then drank from.

"The first day it was agony, I was in and out of consciousness," Dale explained.

“The second day I couldn’t really feel [my legs]. And I tried pulling myself up and my hands were all cut to ribbons from trying to pull myself up. I just couldn’t, every time I tried the pain just knocked me out again.”

The fence that Dale was trapped on (Dale Whitehurst)

Dale said he can't be sure whether the footsteps and talking that he could hear after his third day of being trapped were real or in his head.

During one hallucination, he said he saw his now ex-partner, who had in fact reported Dale missing prompting a major search for him, sitting on the bed.

"She was ignoring me and I was getting more and more frustrated," he said. "My hands were scraping the soil and then I realised this isn’t carpet, I’m still there."

"I realised I was still trapped and dying. I thought my number was up," he said.

Dale was eventually found on the fifth day, when his screaming was finally heard by a group of people passing by.

“All of a sudden three lads appeared and one ran to get help, and one ran to get me water and one stayed with me,” he said.

Dale was eventually taken to hospital after being trapped for 112 hours (Dale Whitehurst)

Dale said he was told later that one of the men was an off-duty police officer.

He recalled police responders and an ambulance crew arriving and firefighters cutting down nearby trees to free him before he passed out again.

When Dale woke up he was in Royal Stoke Hospital being told that both of his legs would need to be amputated because they were just “dead flesh and full of sepsis", he said.

Doctors had told Dale's mum that he was unlikely to survive the night when he was first admitted.

Doctors said his legs were 'just dead flesh' and could not be saved once he arrived at hospital (Dale Whitehurst)

“I had oxygen trapped inside every organ and [doctors] had never come across a person with these injuries before,” Dale said.

“All the doctors said it’s like a miracle.”

If Dale's estimates are correct, he was just 15 hours away from matching the ordeal endured by trapped canyoneer Aron Ralston, who was rescued 127 hours after getting his arm crushed by a boulder.

“I survived five days hanging upside down, no food, no water and as far as I know I am the only person in the world to have survived something like this for that amount of time," Dale said.

“I remember waking up and seeing my feet inflated black like a balloon full of blood and my head was twice the size - I was like papier mache head. I had all flies going around my feet because it was just like rotting flesh, just big balloons of blood."

Dale's left leg, which was the worst, was amputated first within 24 hours to just below the knee, then a week later his right was removed. After spending months in a wheelchair, Dale is now learning to walk with prosthetic legs.

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