Eastleigh biker left waiting in the snow by AA rescued by shepherd

Anthony House, 30, would have waited in the snow for more than six hours had it not been for a kind shepherd who rescued him from the roadside.

He said: "I would have frozen if it wasn’t for him. He was my saving grace.

"Without him, I would probably have ended up in hospital." 

The plumbing apprentice from Eastleigh was driving to a friend's house in Andover when his Sinnis terrain 125 suddenly stopped working at around 4.40pm on January 8.

He pulled over on the A354 near Cashmoor, Blandford Forum in Dorset and called the AA.

"It was snowing and very cold," he said. 

"I had two jackets on and I was still freezing."

A354 near Cashmoor, Blandford Forum, Dorset (Image: Google Maps)

The AA said an assistant would be with him by 6pm.

But an hour later, shepherd Nathan Wall, 48, stopped to check on Anthony and invited him to warm up in his 4x4.

"It was snowing outside, and I could see he was very cold and had been waiting for a while so I just thought of offering him to warm up.

"It was the obvious thing to do," said Nathan.

After waiting half an hour in the car, it became clear no-one from the AA was about to turn up and Nathan offered Anthony to drive him to his home in Minchington.

Anthony said: "The AA had sent me a link which I was following, and the estimated time of arrival just kept on going up and up. Time just passed and I wasn’t called or asked how I was.

"Getting into the warm car felt like heaven when you’ve been outside for so long."

He added: "(Nathan and his wife) took me in and fed me chilli, I was so grateful. I felt quite guilty as I felt like I was intruding into their space."

Shepherd Nathan Wall and his wife Tracy (Image: Nathan Wall)

By 10.30pm, Anthony was finally told an engineer was waiting for him by his broken bike, which by that point, had frozen and had to be towed back.

Looking back on the seven-hour ordeal and the help from Nathan, Anthony said: ”It’s hard to explain how grateful I am to him.”

The AA has since apologised and offered him £300 in compensation.

A spokesperson said: “We do all we can to get to our customers as quickly as possible, but there are times when we experience higher than normal demand for our service and this can lead to unavoidable delays.

“High workload, in addition to the location of the breakdown, led to an unacceptable delay on this occasion and we apologise for this.”