The Yorkshire Vet: An injured Julian Norton calls on Mountain Rescue after bike accident

He had fallen off his bike and awkwardly hit his knee on a large rock, resulting in him severing his patella ligament which attaches the knee cap to the shin.

It left him unable to stand or put weight on his leg without collapsing. In the two hours until help arrived from the “heroes” at Cleveland Mountain Rescue Team, he had managed to move only half a metre so that he could rest against a tree.

Speaking exclusively to The Yorkshire Post following surgery to re-attach the ligament, Mr Norton said: “I couldn’t quite understand what had happened. I could wiggle things around, it wasn’t broken but the function was not there. Quite quickly it became evident I couldn’t walk and I thought ‘what am I going to do?’

“I have been involved in mountain and outdoor stuff all of my life and in rescues with other people injured, but never me.”

Mr Norton rang 999 and asked for mountain rescue and within two hours of his call the team were on the scene where he had been helped by other bikers offering warm clothes.

His leg was put in a vacuum splint and he was lifted onto a stretcher, wrapped within a warm casualty bag, then carried and “wheeled” for 500 metres to a waiting ambulance which took him to the Friarage Hospital in Northallerton.

Following the operation, The Yorkshire Vet star will be unable to drive for six weeks. He is expecting a recovery period, until he regains full mobility and is able to get back on his bike again, of three to six months.

He also intends to visit the team at their base at Great Ayton and has since thought about becoming a volunteer.

“It was very much a team effort for an idiot that had fallen off his bike. These people were having their afternoon inconvenienced because of me, I felt awful,” Mr Norton added.

“I keep thinking I don’t know what would I have done without them. I don’t think I could have moved from where I was.”

Mr Norton hopes his story highlights the work of Cleveland MRT, and also that of the neighbouring Scarborough and Ryedale MRT.

“I am absolutely passionate about encouraging people to get out and enjoy the countryside and open spaces but this is the only real safety net if you tumble and have an accident. For me, this has highlighted how essential this support mechanism is and that it needs to be there if we are getting people to enjoy the hills, moors and dales”

Gary Clarke, from Cleveland MRT, said: “I thought when I took the call that the name was familiar. When I spoke to a colleague, he said ‘I wonder if this is the Yorkshire Vet, Julian Norton, as he is a mountain biker’ and then we put two and two together.

“I can’t recall us rescuing anybody of celebrity status before.

“There are a lot of mountain bike tracks in that area and we have been there a few times over the years for a similar sort of thing.

“It was a difficult carry with the mud and ice so they had to be particularly careful.”

Sixteen MRT members had been involved for nearly four-and-a-half hours by the time the Land Rover was returned to base.