A lifeboat crew rescued a 40-year-old angler and his son aged 10 from ‘freezing conditions’ in the River Swale at Queenborough in Kent.

The pair were angling from the nearby floating pontoon jetty when the boy fell into the river. His father jumped in to save him and both were swept by the tide out into the river where they grabbed one of the buoys in the trots of yacht moorings.

Their screams alerted a passer-by who called Thames Coastguard. They in turn alerted Sheerness lifeboat who transferred the pair to a helicopter. They were flown across Sea Reach in the Thames to Southend-on-Sea general hospital to be treated for possible hypothermia.