A HERO postman who avoided a potentially fatal accident when his van’s brakes failed is still recovering, weeks after the incident.

Mr Del Walton is still off work weeks after sustaining leg injuries when his delivery van rolled down a steep hill in Holcombe towards an elderly woman.

He desperately ran alongside the vehicle and managed to push it into a dry stone wall to narrowly avoid hitting the pedestrian.

Recalling the drama, the 54-year-old postman, of Bolton Road, Bury, said: “The van travelled about 30ft and at the last minute I managed to turn it away from the path of the old lady and it missed her by the breadth of my hand.”

Mr Walton, attached to the Royal Mail sorting office in Wellington Street, had been making a delivery in Holcombe, near The Rake, when the incident happened.

He had parked the vehicle at the top of a steep incline at Lower Dick Field Cottage and put the handbrake on.

He said: “I was a couple of feet away from the van when someone shouted to me that it was moving. I turned around and as the door was open, I tried to jump in.

“There was an old lady walking down the narrow track with her back towards the van.

“A guy from a cottage shouted to her, but she was partially deaf and just kept on walking.

“My first instinct was to grab the top of the door and to dig my heels in.

“I was virtually skiing on my heels going down the gravel track.

“I started to pull the door to the left so I could get it to turn. Then, one of my legs hit a boulder and I fell towards the van.

“I thought I’d go down but I daren’t let go. I was hanging on to the door and somehow managed to drag and twist my body to the left to turn the van.

“At the last minute, it just missed the lady and the vehicle went into a drystone wall.”

Mr Walton, who has worked for the Royal Mail for 29 years, sustained leg injuries and was treated at Fairfield Hospital before being discharged.

He said: “But four days later, I had to have surgery because my right leg was bleeding internally. I’ve still got deep tissue trauma and I’m due to go back to see the consultant soon.”

A Royal Mail spokesman said they were investigating the incident.