A schoolboy is expected to make a full recovery after being impaled through the chest on a fence railing.
The blade pierced Josh Hassan’s body as he leaned over to look for his football near his home in Romford, Essex.
Police, ambulance and fire crews were called to the scene on Tuesday evening and Josh was rushed to the Royal Free Hospital where surgeons operated immediately.
An X-ray showing the fence railing in Josh Hassan's chest
“The doctors said the spike was only two-and-a-half inches away from his heart,” Josh’s mother Dawn told the Mail Online.
She also recalled how she had discovered her son “hanging” from the fence after being alerted by his screams.
The mother-of-two was helped by neighbours to hold Josh still until emergency crews could cut him free.
Josh, who was released from hospital on Thursday, told the Evening Standard: “I had got the ball and was coming back over when I slipped.
Josh and his mother Dawn Hassan
“The spike went through my jacket and through me and I was hanging. I looked down and saw the skin flapping. I shouted for my neighbour and he came and held me up so the injury did not get worse.
“Without him I think I would have died. Everybody was crowding around and it was all very weird.”
A spokesman for the London Ambulance Service told Huffington Post UK: “A 12-year-old with chest injuries was taken as a priority to the Royal Free Hospital.”