RESIDENTS have spoken of their shock after police blocked off a road when a man attempted to stab himself in Barrow town centre. 

Two police vehicles and an ambulance were called to Crellin Street at around 6pm on Sunday night. 

People living nearby said they had heard a man had been wounded with a knife in the back alley behind Batty’s Off Licence in Rawlinson Street. 

At 8pm a police vehicle remained at the scene and regulars in the nearby Blue Lamp pub said they had heard a man had been found semi-conscious. 

Police officers are understood to have cordoned off the back street for around an hour but it had been removed at 8pm. 

One Blue Lamp customer said last night: “It was about an hour and-a-half ago and someone said there was a bloke lying there.

“At one point there were two police vehicles and an ambulance. 

“Police went with the bloke in the ambulance but the paramedics were treating him for around 20 minutes before they left.

“One chap came in the pub and said a bloke had died but he can’t have died otherwise the cordon would still have been up.”

Two residents in Silverdale Street said they had watched police arrive at the scene at around 6.45pm. 

“They blocked off the back street for about an hour,” one woman said.

A police spokesman said: “A man was having a mental health episode and was attempting to self-harm.

“The incident took place at 6pm this evening.

“No one else was involved.”