A RESCUE team battled against rising tides to save a 24-year-old woman after she survived a 100ft cliff fall.

The unnamed woman escaped with little more than superficial injuries, when she plunged off the towering Noses Point at Seaham in County Durham on Sunday night.

Emergency services were called to the cliff top at around 11pm and began a dramatic two hour rescue battle against the elements.

There were four people, two men, a woman and a child all in a very distressed state at the scene, who told fire officers that a "girl had gone over the cliff" at a ravine just north of Noses Point.

A rescue line was put in place and two fire officers from Seaham went down the cliff face and found the woman lying on rocks at the bottom.

Two other officers made their way from the beach while two paramedics and two coastguards also used the rescue line to reach the woman.

As a full-scale rescue was mounted, the RNLI despatched an inshore lifeboat from Sunderland, and a Durham Police helicopter provided light at the scene.

But as the rescue workers continued to give attention to the injured woman, the icy temperatures and rising tide made conditions treacherous.

After giving the woman treatment, the rescue team decided the victim would have to be airlifted to safety.

She was winched into a helicopter from RAF Boulmer and taken to the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle.

The victim was examined and it was found that, remarkably, she had suffered little more than bruising and a possible lung injury.

Seaham Fire Station sub officer Steve Reynolds, who was involved in the rescue operation, said: "I am absolutely amazed that she has survived.

"The four emergency services worked extremely well in a well co-ordinated effort to rescue the casualty.

"I have nothing but praise for the job they all did."

Investigations were continuing last night into how the woman came to fall over the cliff.