A CREW member survived two-and-a-half hours in the River Tyne before being rescued after falling from a fishing boat.

The Humber Coastguard called in the Tynemouth Volunteer Life Brigade and the Tynemouth RNLI Inshore Lifeboat around 9.25pm on Tuesday night after the 40-year-old man aboard the Scottish registered Silver Wave went into the water at the Royal Quays.

A spokesman for the Humber Coastguard said: Tynemouth Vessel Traffic Services (TVTS) had had notification that a crewman had fallen between a fishing boat that was moored alongside the Royal Quays and the jetty.

The information was that once someone realised he was there and heard his calls for help he had been there upwards of two-and-a-half hours and he was still in the water holding on to some sort of ladder.

The police and ambulance also attended the scene.

Between those emergency services they managed to extract him from the water. He is alive, he has suffered some injuries and of course hypothermia. Once he was checked over at the scene, he was then placed in an ambulance and taken to Newcastle RVI.