A golfer is lucky to be alive after being shot in the neck while on a Middlesbrough course - the pellet missed a main artery by millimetres leading to delicate surgery to remove it.

The player has told how he felt something strike his neck as he stepped up to take a swing on the fifth hole at Middlesbrough Municipal Golf Course, in Ladgate Lane.

He said he didn't realised what had happened at first until he saw the blood. He said: "They were in the woods next to the course. I couldn't see who had done it, but then I saw four kids, probably teenagers, running away."

The injured Teesside man, who is in his 30s, said: "There was a lot of blood, but I walked off the course."

He said he then drove to James Cook Hospital. He said: "I went to A & E and said I had been shot with an air rifl

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