Boy, 15, rescued from cliff face by Burnham Coastguards (From Burnham and Highbridge Weekly News)

Boy, 15, rescued from cliff face by Burnham Coastguards

4:00pm Wednesday 16th January 2013 in News By Matthew Colledge

BURNHAM Coastguards saved a 15-year-old boy who got stuck on a cliff face in what they described as one of the most complicated rope rescue missions they have ever faced.

The teenager was scaling the cliff face at Uphill quarry on Sunday evening when his climbing ropes became tangled, leaving him stranded.

His friend, waiting at the top, bravely clung onto the ropes for more than 40 minutes until coastguards came to the rescue.

Station officer Steve Bird was lowered down to the stricken boy, and managed to free him from his lines.

Both were then lowered down to safety.

Steve told the Weekly News: “It's not something we've never come across before, but it was one of the most complicated rope rescues we've ever done.

“If we'd got it wrong, the lad could have died.”

Both boys were taken to hospital with mild hypothermia, and compartmental syndrome, a condition affecting blood flow and caused by wearing the harness equipment for so long.

More than 70 people have praised the coastguards for their efforts on their Facebook page.

Darren Cecil, father of four-year-old Dylan Cecil, who died after being swept out to sea in Burnham last August, wrote: “Well done to you all! Heroes.”