A FULL-SCALE air sea rescue was sparked because a teenager did not want to get his designer shoes wet.

A dozen rescuers launched lifeboats and a Sea King rescue helicopter was scrambled after six youths, aged between 14 and 15, were spotted clinging to rocks.

The had become trapped by the fast incoming tide at Easington, in east Durham.

One, who was winched to safety by a helicopter crew, told furious rescuers he had been trapped because he was afraid of damaging his new Rockport shoes.

Sunderland lifeboat coxswain Ernie Laws said: "We initially got the call that there was between six to eight people stranded on rocks off Easington.

"Seaham coastguard did a brilliant job, getting five of them to safety, but they couldn't reach one of them because he had clambered up the rocks. He had to be airlifted by helicopter to hospital.

"It was then he told them that he had been scared of getting his new shoes wet. He could have been killed going up the cliff."

The coastguard received an emergency call from a mobile phone at 5.40pm last Tuesday, and a two-hour rescue operation followed.

The cost of dispatching the lifeboat and helicopter is believed to be about £25,000.