A freak accident involving west Cumbrian Craig Cook caused a Championship speedway meeting to be abandoned last night.
Edinburgh’s home match with Poole was called off after a photographer was hit by a lamp standard when Cook’s bike cleared the safety fence.
With Edinburgh trailing 21-9 Cook crashed and fell on the fourth bend of heat six but his bike just seemed to take off without him and flew over the safety fence.
The bike then appeared to hit a lighting pole which then fell onto a photographer who was taking his action pictures.
Whilst track ambulance paramedics attended to the stricken cameraman an air ambulance was summoned and he was eventually airlifted to hospital.
The match was being streamed online by the British Speedway Network and commentators reported the photographer had been struck on the head and was bleeding.
The coverage was cut short and the meeting abandoned.
An experienced retired Scottish racing ace Kenny McKinna had said: “It’s very unusual, very, very unusual. Craig didn’t do anything wrong there and when he got to the exit of bend four the bike just took off.”
After the shock incident and prolonged delay and treatment the decision was made to abandon the meeting.
