'Tombstoning' man rescued as jump goes wrong

Holidaymakers using an inflatable dinghy rescued a man who was seriously injured after "tombstoning" more than 100ft into the sea from one of Britain's most famous coastal landmarks.

Hundreds of people watched from the beach near Lulworth Cove in Dorset as the 26-year old man floundered in the water after leaping from the top of Durdle Door, a natural limestone arch that juts 400ft into the sea.

Stunned by the force of impact and suffering severe internal injuries, the man floated helplessly until a group of holidaymakers swam out and dragged him on to an inflatable dinghy, said the Portland Coastguard watch manager, Ros Evans. "Members of the public managed to get the injured man on to an inflatable and drag it out of the water keeping him lying down flat and, fortunately, there was a doctor on the beach who was able to attend immediately," she said.

Kevin Burt, the station officer of the Lulworth Coastguard Rescue Team said that the man, who has not been named, was lucky to have survived the drop on Saturday. Although the tide was on its way in, the seabed around Durdle Door is uneven, with many shallows and underwater rocks, he said.

"From the top of the Door it is a fall of at least 100ft. Even if the tide is in, when you hit water from that kind of height it's like hitting concrete. You can be very seriously injured. [The victim] had inhaled a lot of seawater and he would have drowned if he hadn't been fished out by people on the beach," he said.

Once the man's condition had stabilised he was transferred to an inshore lifeboat and taken out to open water where he was winched on to a coastguard helicopter. He was airlifted to Dorset General Hospital in Dorchester, where his condition was described as stable.

Portland Coastguard said the man was believed to have been with a group of friends who left the scene after the accident.

Ms Evans said: "This behaviour is plain stupid. Young men are dying pointlessly and getting seriously injured every summer in a bid to impress their friends. This young man jumped from the top of the precarious cliff arch of Durdle Door from a height of at least 20 metres, so an injury was almost inevitable."

The incident comes amid a spate of deaths and injuries caused by the craze for "tombstoning" in which thrill-seekers jump into water from cliffs or buildings. On Friday night, a teenage boy died after jumping off a bridge in Scotland. Sean McSkimmings, 17, was among a group of young people who leapt off Balloch Bridge on the river Leven in Dunbartonshire. Sean, who could not swim, failed to resurface, and his body was later recovered by police divers.

The craze had already claimed three lives this summer, in separate accidents at Minehead in Somerset, Clacton-on-Sea in Essex and Torbay in Devon.

Fans of tombstoning refer to it as an "extreme sport" and post lists of their favourite jump sites on internet forums but coastguards and police are concerned by the increasing popularity of the phenomenon. In some parts of the country, emergency services deal with an average of one cliff-jumping rescue a week during the summer.

Safety experts point out that holidaymakers - their judgement often clouded by alcohol - may be unaware of the risks in jumping blindly into unknown waters.

Even the most placid surface can conceal rocks, riptides and other dangers, said Roger Vincent, a spokesman for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

Just one metre under the surface, British coastal waters are barely one degree above freezing, even on the hottest summer day. Sudden immersion in the chilly water can paralyse the limbs of even the strongest swimmer, he said.

"People have always jumped off rocks into the sea, and always will do. We can't ban this or do anything stop people jumping, but they need to understand the risk of what they are doing.

"The sea is a dynamic environment and conditions are changing all the time - a place that may have seemed safe one day can be fatal the next," he said.