Girl impaled on bicycle

Emergency services help after a young girl impaled herself on the handle bar of a bicycle. Photo / Michael Craig

A 10-year-old girl was impaled on a bicycle in Avondale this afternoon and rushed to hospital with the handlebar still embedded in her body.

St John Ambulance were called to Eastdale reserve just before 3pm, and quickly called for the Fire Service to cut the girl free from her bike.

A witness, who wishes only to be named John, saw the girl, lying in the carpark with the bike on top of her.

"She was screaming and screaming, I couldn't understand what she was saying but she was screaming loud."

At the same time as the ambulance arrived, about 15 people, believed to be the girls relatives, turned up at the carpark. The witness said firefighters used bolt cutters to cut the one side of the handlebar from the bike, leaving it embedded in her torso area.

"The worst part was how long she lay there, about 25 minutes before the Firefighters cut the bike off her, then another ten minutes before they put her in the ambulance," he said.

The girls mother also travelled to the hospital in the ambulance, while relatives removed the bicycle into a nearby house.