Day of high drama as llamas harm a farmer

SITTING around waiting for their 100th mission, the air ambulance crew could not possibly have foreseen what was going to happen that day.

They were more than a little surprised to be called out not to a road crash, or a cliff fall - but to a farmer being beaten up by his llamas.

The beasts got over excited when Graham Bailey took them for their food. Milo, Bertie, Horatio and Felix became 'very excited and danced around', knocking him down and breaking his hip.

Mr Bailey spent two painful hours crawling across a field for help. "Fortunately, a lady was walking her dog heard me calling out,", he said.

When the air ambulance crew landed their helicopter, they found neighbours at the centre of a running battle with the out-of-control animals.

Bystanders were chasing the llamas and the llamas were chasing them,", said paramedic Richard Dodd. "We had to scoop My Bailey on to a stretched and were running towards the chopper with the llamas in hot pursuit.

"At one point I looked over my shoulder as I ran to the airfcraft to find one breathing down my neck. We had to whisk him away before they got to us. You really could not of scripted it.

Word soon spread that 72-year-old My Bailey's favourite llama, Milo, was at the centre of the fracas in Loddington, Northamptonshire.

"I'm not surprised," said Ann Tanner, who runs a nearby farm, &quotHe would be the first one you would single out as a troublemaker. He's the big hairy one and has been known to be nasty."

But Mr Bailey, recovering in Hospital last night, defended the llamas' aggression toward his rescuers. "I use them to protect sheep from foxes and dogs," he said. "I wasn't surprised when they came to 'protect' me"