Air ambulance crews have been praised for their skills in rescuing two young sports enthusiasts after accidents at Marshfield and Colerne.

Motocross rider Clinton Bars, 23, was airlifted after an accident on a track at Marshfield on Wednesday.

The following day teenage horserider Charlotte Case was flown to hospital after being thrown from the saddle and dragged behind her horse.

Charlotte , 17, had been going to meet her best friend, Daniella Gill for a ride when her Irish cob, Billy was spooked by a builder’s tarpaulin sheet that was moving in the breeze at the side of Star Corner Lane, Colerne.

She was thankful that she had chosen to wear protective clothing that day, after not wearing it for the past six months.

She said: “Billy had reared up after seeing the plastic move and I was slammed against the wall between the lane and field. I tried to control him but he reared again knocking me off completely. I was dragged down the lane for a short distance as my foot was caught in the stirrup.

“I got up quickly to get hold of him as he was making his way towards the main road where he could have been injured.

“It wasn’t until I had got him back into Washmere stables just yards away that I collapsed from the pain in my back, which I had been trying to ignore.”

Charlotte, of Woodlea, in Thickwood, rang her grandfather who rushed over from his home at Watergates, in Colerne.

“My granddad called the emergency services and the air ambulance was here soon afterwards but had difficulty landing because of the telegraph wires but there were loads of local people there helping out including the field owner, Harold Rumble.”

“I was just so scared that I had done something to my back by getting up after the accident.”

She said that the paramedics were brilliant, specifically Shaun Russell who took her mind off the flight to hospital, as she has a fear of flying.

When she arrived at the Royal United Hospital in Bath she was sent for an emergency X-ray.

She said: “The doctors told me that if I hadn’t been wearing a body protector, which is padding all the way around my front and back, it would have been much worse and I could have been left paralysed and never able to ride again.

“It was the first time I had worn it in six months and I ride up that lane everyday, my mum was always nagging me to wear it. I’m so pleased I decided to put it on and I will be encouraging other riders to go out with it on every time they go for a ride no matter how short.”

She hopes that when the bruising heals she will be riding again with the help of her best friend.

Former top motocross rider Mark Hucklebridge, who owns the track at Marshfield, was also full of praise for the paramedics after they airlifted Mr Bars, who lives in Bristol, to the Royal United Hospital.

He said: “The rider had been doing a really slow jump when he came off his bike. It wasn’t serious but he came off with a dislocated shoulder from the fall and a broken tibia and fibula in his leg. He was wearing the correct protective gear.

“The air ambulance crew was pretty efficient and we are very pleased with the professional way they dealt with the situation.”

Mr Bars will be out of action for about 12 weeks.