Fire crews free man stuck in clay

At one stage, the man was stuck up to his waist in clay

Fire crews have freed a man who had been stuck up to his waist in clay in a 12ft (3.7m) trench for almost five hours in Berkshire.

Up to 50 firefighters were dispatched to Grange Farm in Shaw, near Newbury, at about 1530 BST on Wednesday.

They shored up the trench to stop it collapsing while they tried to extract the man, who was given oxygen.

Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service's Urban Search Rescue team also assisted with the operation.

Brian Morgan, from Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service, said the man's feet had become trapped around a pipe.

"We could not detect the pipe under the soil - being made of clay it was a similar composition to the soil," he said.

"When we actually got down digging with our hands and little hand tools we were using, it appeared that his feet were actually wrapped around the pipe. It took us some time to clear his feet from around there."

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It took rescuers nearly five hours to free the man