A NOVICE parachutist had a lucky escape today when he fell into a tree and got entangled 60 ft above the ground on his maiden jump.

The 21-year-old came to grief in Peterlee town centre, in east Durham, after drifting two miles from the Peterlee Parachute Centre at the nearby Shotton Airfield, at about 3.20pm.

He finally made it safely to the ground three hours later after an “extremely difficult” operation involving dozens of firefighters, who converged on the scene from across the region.

Despite his ordeal, he seemed none the worse for his experience and was taken to the Sunderland Royal Hospital for a precautionary check-up.

The young man’s solo jump from 3,500 ft went according to plan to begin with. But, according to those monitoring his jump, he did not respond to radio instructions and floated off downwind.

The man, who is believed to be a student at Newcastle University, landed in the top of a copse of conifer trees off behind the Methodist Memorial Church and East Durham Funeral Service in Bede Way.

Dozens of onlookers watched the drama unfold as 38 firefighters from the County Durham and Darlington and Cleveland fire brigades tried to reach him.

Firefighters soon found their conventional ladders were not long enough and called for an aerial ladder platform.

Some were lifted up, but could not reach him because of the density of the branches.

They urged the stricken parachutist to try to take the weight off his harness and to keep swinging his legs if he could.

Asked if he had been conscious throughout he replied "yes", but complained of feeling pins and needles in his legs.

Peterlee Parachute Centre drop zone controller Paul Moore, who rushed to the scene to check on the welfare of the novice, said: “He was doing a solo jump at the time. It was his very first jump.

“I was watching him at the point of exit. It went as normal.

“But after that he didn’t take control of the canopy and didn’t respond to any verbal commands by radio and consequently the parachute turned downwind and he ended up down here.

“It is quite unusual to end up this far away, but these parachutes can glide quite a long way.

"He was using a Navigator parachute, which is a purpose-built student parachute.

“We are relieved and happy that he wasn’t injured.”

He added the student had gone through a rigorous revision (training) session before the jump.

Spennymoor station manager Steve Cummings, who was incident commander at the scene, said: “It was an extremely difficult rescue, given the location of the casualty on the edge of Peterlee Dene.

“He was about 60 ft above the ground in a tree, suspended by his parachute harness.

“Our first approach was to try an aerial ladder platform to reach into the casualty.

“Because of the tree, this proved impossible, so we then used the rope rescue crew from the Cleveland Fire Brigade, positioned the platform above him and a firefighter descended down to him.

“He was effectively sitting in the canopy of the tree which made it difficult for us to do anything in case we disturbed him, as he wasn’t actually secure.

“He was secured in a harness and then we lowered him down.”

He added: “He is surprisingly well given that he was in the tree for about three hours. He was in some discomfort.

“Initially he was in no pain, but it did take us quite a while to get the rescue affected."

Cleveland Fire Brigade watch manager Tony Suggitt added: “The rescue went excellently.

“It was a good combined effort by the Durham services and ourselves. We worked well together.

“It was a very, very difficult, but we train specially for this. Thankfully these kind of incidents are very rare."