'Despondent person' rescued by emergency crews after falling 20ft from South Shields Pier

Volunteers from Sunderland Coastguard Rescue Team were called out to the incident just before 12.30am today.

The person had fallen to the ground from the pier but was miraculously uninjured.

They were unable to climb up from the base of the pier however and rope rescue equipment was needed along with assistance from Tynemouth Volunteer Life Brigade (VLB).

The person was then recovered back to the pier where they were taken into the care of the police and the ambulance service.

It followed an earlier incident for rescue crews on the Leas at Marsden just before 10.30pm yesterday.

Sunderland Coastguard Rescue Team said it is unable to provide further details on that incident.

A post on the organisation's Facebook read: "The team had a busy night with two incidents back to back.

"First we were called at 22:27 to assist the police with an incident on the Leas at Marsden. We worked with Tynemouth Volunteer Life Brigade, Northumbria Police, North East Ambulance Service and Tynemouth RNLI lifeboat.

"Due to the nature of the incident we are unable to release any further details.

"As we were leaving the first incident at 00:25 we were immediately re-tasked to assist the ambulance service with a despondent person on South Shields Pier.

"On arrival the casualty was located by the police but they had fallen some 20 feet.

"Although uninjured, they were unable to climb from the base of the pier.

"We started to prepare our rope rescue equipment and requested further assistance from Tynemouth VLB.

"We deployed one of our rope rescue technicians who recovered the casualty back to the pier top where they were taken into the care of the police and ambulance service."