Corrie star breaks leg in South Africa

Coronation Street star Oliver Mellor has broken his leg while on a charity trip to South Africa, it has been revealed.

The actor, who plays Dr Matt Carter in the soap, was in the country with co-star Shobna Gulati (Sunita Alahan), actress Jill Halfpenny, TV host Gethin Jones and cricketer Darren Gough to show how useful motorcycles can be for delivering aid to remote villages and schools.

However, nine days ago, he crashed his motorbike in Lesotho and needed surgery to insert a metal plate into his leg, The People reports.

"I was really lucky because it was a clean break," he said. "If there had been fragments of bone, the surgery would have been a lot more complicated. Something – probably a patch of water – sent my wheel flying and the bike started to fall, crushing my right leg underneath it.

"It all happened so quickly. One moment I was riding the bike and the next it had skidded and I was on the road. At first I didn't feel any pain, and for a few seconds I thought I was OK. But then I felt my leg and ­realised something was badly wrong.

"We were with a team of ­paramedics who immediately gave me ­morphine, so I wasn't in too much discomfort. My leg just felt very detached. It wasn't until much later, while having X-rays at the hospital, that the pain began to kick in. That evening the surgeons operated on my leg and put a metal plate in to secure it."

Mellor - who joined the show last year - added that he is due back on set on Tuesday and that bosses are planning to work around his cast.