A PARAGLIDER had to be rescued after he crashed into a hillside at a popular beauty spot.

The 47-year-old man was stranded 40 metres down the steeply sloping hillside at Carlton Bank on the edge of the North Yorks Moor, suffering serious injuries.

Volunteers from Cleveland Mountain Rescue Team provided assistance and he was treated at the scene by a doctor and ambulance paramedic.

He was then hauled up the slope on a specialised mountain rescue stretcher before been transported to a waiting ambulance.

The injured man, from Consett, County Durham, was taken to James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough, for treatment following the incident at about 4pm on Sunday afternoon.

It was the team's second call-out to Carlton Bank over the weekend.

On Friday evening they helped in the search for five young men, from Stockton, Teesside, who became disorientated in thick fog and pouring rain while on an evening walk towards Carlton Bank Glider Station. They were located at about 2am on Saturday morning.

Cleveland Mountain Rescue Team has already been called out 28 times this year, which officials say is far more than they would have expected.