A 45-YEAR-old man from Swindon sustained serious chest injuries after coming off his motorcycle in Wharf Road yesterday afternoon.

Ambulance teams responded shortly before 1.30pm to reports that a motorbike had crashed on the Wroughton Road.

No other vehicles are thought to have been involved in the collision, but the casualty had suffered serious chest injuries and was having difficulty breathing when the ambulance arrived.

Wiltshire Police attended the scene half an hour later and closed a length of the road stretching from the Blooms Garden Centre, to Mill Road for more than two hours, as emergency services dealt with the incident.

After the man was stabilised by the ambulance teams, he was airlifted by Wiltshire Air Ambulance to Southmead Hospital in Bristol, where he remains in a stable condition.

While the injuries are concerning, they are not thought to be life-threatening.

A spokesman for Wiltshire Police said: "We were called to Wharf Road in Wroughton at 1.55pm to single vehicle road traffic collision involving a motorcycle, in which the rider has come off his bike.

"The ambulance service were at the scene when we attended and the road has been closed from the Mill Road end to Blooms Garden Centre near Junction 16.

"The injured party is a man in his 40s from the Swindon area. He has been taken to Southmead Hospital by air ambulance for treatment."

Drivers were advised to avoid the area as recovery and investigations proceeded, and the road reopened A spokesperson for the South Western Ambulance Service said: "We were called at 1.25pm to Wharf Road to reports of a one vehicle collision involving a motorcycle.

"There was one male casualty, a 45-year-old male, who had come off his bike, and suffered serious chest injuries. When ambulance attended he was having breathing difficulties and he was treated at the scene.

"The Wiltshire Air Ambulance was in attendance and transported the male to Southmead Hospital in Bristol.

"It is a quite serious chest injury which he sustained but the man was stable when he left the scene, being taken by air ambulance at 2.46pm."