A FARMER narrowly escaped death after being crushed and gored by a raging bull.

The angry one tonne animal pinned him against a pen and butted the front of his body.

Robert Procter, of Pit Farm, near Cark-in-Cartmel, was attempting to get his jet black dairy Holstein bull back into a stall when the beast turned on him.

It trapped him against a metal gate and bashed his body with its horns.

The 65-year-old leapt out of the narrow pen before the animal was able to deliver a fatal blow.

He managed to vault over a gate with half of his ring finger missing and his bowel punctured.

The father-of-three said ‘pure panic’ set in.

“If I hadn’t managed to get out fast I would have been a goner, that would have been it,” said Mr Procter. “It was foolish of me, I shouldn’t have got in the pen with him, that’s when he crushed me.

“He went straight at me. I managed to stumble to my feet but he kept on at me. The only thing I was thinking was I had to get out.

“I don’t know how, partly me trying and partly being thrown into the air by him. I managed to get over the bars, but my leg was stuck and I was still in his way.

“It all happened so quickly, I didn’t even notice my finger.”

His son Neil, 41, was milking nearby and phoned for an ambulance. The North West Air Ambulance flew him across Morecambe Bay to the Royal Lancaster Infirmary where he underwent an operation to save his bowel.

He then spent nearly three weeks in hospital recovering from the attack and will be unable to work for another few months.

The dairy farmer said the bull had now been slaughtered. Mr Procter, who has farmed for most of his life, will not be keeping a bull again.

“Every one in ten bulls turn aggressive as they get older,” said Mr Procter. “I could tell for a while this one was getting more aggressive.

“The public don't need to worry about bulls. Cows are normally the ones that can turn, they get protective over their calves but it would be a dog that sets them off.

“If a cow does turn the best thing to do is to move away from the dog.

“I would really like to thank the air ambulance for all their help. I was conscious through the whole thing but they made me very comfortable.”

In 2009 Vet Liz Crowsley was found dead in a field near Hawes after a herd of cows trampled her body.

In 1997 Guy Mackie was attacked by cows as he ran along the Dales Way footpath, near Windermere, with his dog. Mr Mackie, who was circled by the cattle after letting his pet off the lead. He had to have his face sewn back together by doctors, his lungs drained and he suffered seven broken ribs.

And in 2003 Shirley McKaskie was attacked by a herd of suckler cows while walking her terrier crossing a field at Greystoke, near Penrith. She needed emergency brain surgery, broken left arm and ribs and later received £250,000 in compensation.