Man injured in Coromandel barge accident

A man suffered serious leg injuries when he was pulled into mussel cleaning machinery on a barge off Coromandel today.

Constable John Morrissey of Coromandel told NZPA the man had been working on the barge out in the Hauraki Gulf about 8am when the accident happened.

"A man in his early 20s stepped across a rope and got caught in a tumbler used for cleaning the mussels.

"He was trapped in there well and truly so the barge sailed into the wharf here in town and the local fire brigade used cutting equipment to extract him from the tumbler -- it took quite some time to do that."

The man was flown on the Westpac Rescue Helicopter to Auckland Hospital with serious leg injuries.

The tumblers spin mussels around to clean them after they are stripped off ropes.

- NZPA