A labourer who survived an eight foot long spike plunging through his eye has met Bradford firefighters to thank them for helping to rescue him.

Tony Coffey was injured when the threaded metal rod pierced his eye as he worked on an overnight refit of the Argos store at Forster Square Retail Park.

But thanks to the actions of a team of paramedics, firefighters and medics at Bradford Royal Infirmary, the 35-year-old dad-to-be will see his first baby, a girl who is due to be born next month.

On Tuesday morning the metal rod plunged eight inches into Mr Coffey's face. As it went in it chipped his glasses and pierced his eye socket, but amazingly missed both of his eye muscles and his eyeball before resting below his jaw.

Firefighters had to cut through the rod to within a metre of his face so he could get into the ambulance, before they were called again to the operating theatre several hours later to make another cut.

Mr Coffey, from Oldham, met firefighters from Bradford and Fairweather Green at the hospital on Saturday to thank them for their efforts.

"I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart," he said. "I would like to take them all out and buy them a few rounds of drinks. I could feel them clamping the rod and then it snapping. As soon as it snapped, a lot of the pressure came off.

"The retina and pupil are okay but everything is still blurred. I just want to forget it now and get this mended and look after my baby."

Mr Coffey has asked surgeons for the piece of rod they extracted from his face and joked about auctioning it on an auction website.

Bradford firefighters James Dyson, Carl Pearson, Chris Fawthrop, Steve Sheridan, sub officer Alan Holdsworth and Fairweather Green assistant divisional officer Keith Robinson formed the rescue team, along with paramedics from West Yorkshire Ambulance Service.

Mr Pearson, who cut the rod with Mr Dyson said: "I have cut rails before but never out of somebody's eye. When I saw Tony for the first time I expected he would lose his eye.

"The main priority was to get him to hospital and keeping that rod still. He was unbelievable - very calm and very brave."

Surgeons who operated to remove the rod said there was no damage other than a superficial wound, but it was still too early to say what the final outcome would be.

Mr Robinson added: "It was amazing to see Tony up and about. It was out of this world. He has been a very lucky guy. It was quite emotional.

"He is just so lucky to be alive and he will now see his baby when she is born. He is a lovely guy.

"I have been a firefighter for 22 years and I have seen accidents before. But this was different because the rescue operation itself put his life in immediate danger. We could not see exactly where the rod was in his eye. I thought it was very close to his brain and we took it as a worst case scenario. We knew that one wrong move from us and he could lose his sight."