Jockey kicked in face by horse then run over by ambulance drivers

'They stopped it on top of my leg so I started screaming... You have to laugh really,' says Chris Meehan

Chris Meehan was left with a broken nose and broken leg after the accidents (Getty Images)

A jockey from Northern Ireland was run over by an ambulance on its way to treat him after he had been kicked in the face by a horse.

Chris Meehan, from County Down, suffered a broken leg when the vehicle drove over him during a hurdle race in Merano, northern Italy, and now faces two months out of action.

He was left lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood after falling from his horse and being kicked in the face, before being placed in the recovery position by the race starter.

Meehan also had his nose broken in the accident and suffered a gash to his jaw which required 27 stitches.

“The racecourse ambulance came up alongside us and reversed up onto my leg,” Meehan told Racing Post.

“They stopped it on top of my leg so I started screaming. It broke it straight away.

“Everyone around me had to push it off me. You have to laugh really.”

Meehan also saw irony in the coincidence that several close members of his family work as ambulance drivers at home in Northern Ireland.

He said: “My father actually teaches most people in Northern Ireland and England how to drive the ambulance! It’s bizarre, you couldn’t make it up.

“My father, brother, auntie, they’re all ambulance people.”

Meehan recently took out his jockey's licence again and is planning a return to jumping following a stint on the flat.

He said he was returning to Ireland on Tuesday for surgery on his leg and face.