HAMPSHIRE'S coastguards have carried out a daring helicopter rescue along cliffs of the Isle of Wight.

Dozens of onlookers watched as the pilot of the Solent Coastguard aircraft had to carefully reverse the tail rota of the helicopter between a small space in the cliffs of the beach at Alum Bay.

The aircraft had only a small area to manoeuvre in strong winds of the shoreline after a 23-year-old seriously injured his leg during a game of beach football.

"A helicopter is never an easy thing to stabilise, so the pilot had his work cut out for him," a coastguard spokesman said.

"He used a space in the cliffs where some of the cliff had eroded away to back the tail rota of the aircraft so he could turn and winch the injured man to safety."

The Alum Bay cliffs, which are famous for their multi-coloured sand, can be accessed by a chair lift during summer months and a stairway, but the coastguard was called out when ambulance crews decided the man's injuries were too serious to try to carry him up.

The coastguard crew winched the man hundreds of feet into the air and onto the helicopter before landing nearby at High Down where an ambulance took him to St Mary's Hospital for treatment.