Print

Mail

wiki links

Girl, 6, survives a 45m fall from sea cliffs in Yorkshire

A six-year-old girl was discharged from the hospital on Friday after suffering only minor injuries in a fall of more than 45m from notoriously dangerous sea cliffs.

Rescuers who arrived by inshore lifeboat to find Demi-Leigh Tweddle sitting dazed on a shingle beach at Chimney Hole near Filey, North Yorkshire, northern England, described her as a "miracle child who must be made of rubber."

She plunged from a fenced-off area of rough grass near the Blue Dolphin caravan park where she and her family from Middlesbrough were on holiday. The strip of crumbling land, which also has warnings about the danger of unstable and steep ground, is where another holidaymaker, Terri Ann Ellwood, 16, fell to her death two years ago.

Demi-Leigh was with her parents at the time of the incident and her mother Susan rang 999 while her father scrambled down a gentler stretch of cliff to try to reach the child. A helicopter from RAF Leconfield was scrambled and the girl was flown to Scarborough hospital.

Stuart Lane, a crew member on the Filey inshore lifeboat said: "She was holding her arm and complaining of pains in her side, but she was very lucky. She had cuts and bruises but it is incredible she wasn't hurt even more."

Mike Puplett, watch manager at Humber coastguard, repeated previous warnings about taking extreme care at cliff edges on the Yorkshire coast. Many stretches are not only precipitous but constantly subject to erosion which can cause large sections to break away and crash on to the beaches below.
This story has been viewed 1737 times.