A SERIOUSLY ill woman with a suspected broken leg had to be rescued by fork-lift truck from her New Forest home.

Betty Horsfall, 75, was trapped in her first floor bedroom in the former servants' quarters attached to Carrington Manor, Milford-on-Sea.

She had to be removed in a delicate operation sensitively carried out by a fire crew from Lymington fire station and Hampshire's Urban Rescue Team.

Lawrence Horsfall, 83, said his wife had recently been diagnosed with lymphatic cancer and had just been given her first course of chemotherapy.

She also suffers from arthritis and has replacement shoulder and hip joints. During the past few weeks her left leg had been badly swollen.

At about 5.30am on Wednesday she turned in bed.

"Her left leg just went and she was shouting and hollering with agony," said Mr Horsfall.

He called the ambulance and paramedics were soon on the scene and administered painkillers.

They realised it would be very difficult to carry her down the stairs from the first floor bedroom and the ambulance crew called Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service for assistance.

"The stairs are very narrow and there's very little room at the top. We have a chair lift on the stairs because of my wife's infirmity," said Mr Horsfall.

The turntable ladder from Redbridge fire station in Southampton was unable to get under low power lines in the narrow driveway to the property.

So a substantial forklift truck was sent for which arrived on the back of a brigade low loader at about 8.30am. A window was removed to allow the rescue.

Mrs Horsfall was carried on a stretcher out of the window across three hefty planks and positioned on a wooden platform at the front of the fork-lift.

After being secured, she was gently lowered to the ground and carried to the waiting ambulance by six firefighters.

Her husband followed her into the ambulance to have a few words before she left.

As he left the vehicle she called to him: "Thank everyone very much for me, Lawry."

"It's not too bad, but if it's what they think it is, she will be out of action for a few months," he said, before being comforted by a neighbour.