A Ballarat grandfather who sliced his face open with a chainsaw has told how he tied his head together before making a desperate dash to hospital.

Bill Singleton was working alone in the bush when he slipped and came within centimetres of death.

A few scars and a speech impediment are the only remaining clues of the horrific events of May 6.

“All I felt and heard was the crack of the blade going through my bottom jaw," Bill said.

The 68-year-old had been using a chainsaw to cut firewood when the blade flicked back at him, slicing open his jaw.

“Apparently it severed the tongue and severed all the muscles from under the chin,” he said.

The chainsaw blades penetrated through his skull and narrowly missed major arteries.

He couldn’t talk, so he couldn’t call for help. Using a first aid kit he wrapped the bandages around his head to hold his jaw together and, incredibly, drove himself to a hospital 40 minutes away.





Mr Singleton knew he had two options: He could stay where he was and die from blood loss, or attempt to drive out of there.

Twice he had to pull over, afraid he was going to black out but survival instincts kicked in and he pushed on.

After parallel parking to avoid a fine, Bill crawled into the emergency department.

“Things started to spin and things where going dark and I thought, “I’m going to black out here”,” Bill said.

Doctors thought he had been shot. He was airlifted to the Royal Melbourne Hospital where a team of surgeons carefully reconstructed his face.

“I didn’t think he was aware of just how penetrating an injury he’d given himself,” Associate Professor Al Nastri from Royal Melbourne Hospital said.

“[It was] probably his saving grace.”

Just three weeks on the Ballarat grandfather is back at home, learning to talk again and preparing to get back to being the handyman he always was.

“I took that risk meaning that if I had’ve stayed where the accident happened, I would have died for sure,” Bill said.