A MOTORCYCLIST had to have seven operations after a driver under the influence of drugs and drink crashed into him.

James Macdonald was riding his motorbike in Parkhouse Road in Barrow at 1pm on March 22, South Cumbria Magistrates were told.

When he came round a bend a Vauxhall Astra being driven by Ryan Mason on the wrong side of the road smashed into his bike resulting in him being thrown off into a field.

Mr Macdonald, from Dalton, was flown by air ambulance to the Royal Preston Hospital where he spent eight weeks.

He suffered an open fracture to his right femur, a dislocated left knee which required reconstruction, damage to his right shoulder, a fractured left thumb and a mallet fracture to his right thumb.

He also sustained a slight bleed on the brain, magistrates were told.

Mr Macdonald had to undergo seven operations - one to each of his knees, one to his left thumb and four wash-outs of the wound on his right knee due to contracting an infection from the bacteria picked up from the field where he landed following the crash.

After eight weeks in Royal Preston Hospital he was transferred to Furness General Hospital for a further two days before being discharged.

The court heard he then had to return every day for an hour for an IV drip and have the wound on his right leg changed.

Mr Macdonald was on three different types of antibiotics and will need a further surgery to remove the metal plates in his right leg which are helping to keep the bone in place while it fuses back together.

At South Cumbria Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday Mason, of Festival Road in Millom, pleaded guilty to driving with a level of alcohol above the specified limit, driving with a level of cannabis above the specified limit, and driving without due care and attention.

The 33-year-old had 49 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breach. The legal limit is 35 microgrammes. He was also double the legal limit for cannabis.

Magistrates were told in interview Mason at first intimated it may have been the biker’s fault but after being shown the evidence he admitted his driving was careless.

Mason, represented in court by Mike Graham, was banned from driving for 28 months and ordered to complete 300 hours of unpaid work within the next 12 months. He was also told to pay £85 court costs and a £90 victim surcharge.