A teenager plunged 60ft down a sheer cliff while having his photo taken by a friend.

A 999 call reported that the boy had fallen from the cliffs at Old Harry Rocks in Dorset.

Ian Brown, station officer for Swanage Coastguard, told Somerset Live the accident happened on Thursday as the boy was having his photo taken by the cliff edge.

“He went towards it, and then his friends said they just saw him ‘disappear over the edge’,” he said.

“The students had been briefed on not going near the cliff edge.”

When lifeboat crews arrived at the beach below, they found him almost unscathed and being helped by a local activity company.

Swanage Coastguard said emergency crews “were astonished by the absence of serious injuries”.

“Remarkably, despite falling 60ft, he had sustained only minor injuries,” it said.

The boy was assessed by ambulance crews and “released back to his group with some strong safety advice about his actions”, the coastguard added.

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The Swanage and St Albans Coastguard teams, both Swanage RNLI lifeboats, Dorset Police, South Western ambulance, and a Dorset and Somerset air ambulance critical care team were all involved in responding to the incident.

Purbeck Police said its Swanage team assisted the coastguard, saying “miraculously the person only suffered very minor injuries”.

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