A neighbour has described how she heard somebody screaming for help and thought it was children prior to discovering a woman with her leg trapped in a garden rotavator.

The woman, who lives in Flordon Lane, Newton Flotman, was collecting the washing from her back garden when she thought she heard somebody screaming 'help me mummy' shortly after 3pm yesterday.

She initially thought the anguished cries were coming from children living two doors away and it was only when she went to the bottom of her garden and could still hear the screams that she realised they were coming from next door.

She found her neighbour sat up against a fence with her right foot stuck in the rotavator, which she had been using to churn up soil.

She said her foot had been twisted and was at a right angle to the rest of her leg, which was clearly broken and she had also suffered a gash.

'I was just going outside yesterday afternoon and I heard some really loud screaming 'help me' and I thought there were children next door who had hurt themselves, so I went to see if it was the children.

'Then I went down to the bottom of the garden and I could still here the screaming and it was coming from our neighbour.

'I went into the garden and the neighbour had been using the rotavator and it had fallen on her leg.'

She called the emergency services and the fire service, East Anglian Air Ambulance and ambulance all arrived within eight minutes of her making the call.

The injured woman was taken to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital by air ambulance where she is currently in a stable condition.

The neighbour said she did not know how the accident happened, but believed the rotavator may have malfunctioned in some way or become stuck while she was trying to turn it.