FIREFIGHTERS have freed a man who was trapped between two beach huts in Essex.

Essex County Fire and Rescue Service were called to the aid of the disabled man, aged in his 60s, who had become trapped on Burnt House Promenade in Walton-on-the-Naze just after 10.15am.

Crews, who worked alongside an ambulance team, used blocks and air bags to move one of the beach huts so the casualty could be brought to safety.

Station officer Mark Oxley said: “The man had limited movement in one of his legs. “He had been working on his beach hut and he had bent down to replace a rotten plank at the bottom of the hut when he fell and ended up on his bad leg, wedged in with his good leg stuck under the hut. “There was no way that we could reach him in the position he was in so we used air bags to lift the hut up and move it a foot to the right.

“Once we had done that it was fairly easy to get the man back on his feet.” He was freed by 10.50am and left in the care of East of England Ambulance Service.

Mr Oxley added: “He hadn’t been there too long and the ambulance crews checked him over and said that he was fine.

“He was good and stuck, but luckily we had the equipment to move the entire hut, get him out and put it back so he came out completely uninjured.”