A MAN had to be rescued by a passing canal barge after he fell 20 feet off a bridge and into a canal in Leigh.

The man, believed to be in his mid-twenties, plunged from Mather Lane Bridge and landed in the Bridgewater Canal last Sunday.

Police, firefighters and paramedics struggled to get to the man after he had scrambled onto a towpath which was inaccessible for them to reach.

Firefighters and paramedics scrambled down a rope ladder and gave the man painkillers at the scene for a broken ankle.

Crewmembers on a passing pleasure barge the Blue Velvet helped get the man on to their barge and safely across to an ambulance, which was waiting on the other side of the canal.

He was taken to the Royal Bolton Hospital, suffering from a broken ankle. He was later discharged from hospital.

Journal reader Gabrielle Lorenz, who runs a canal barge business at the Bedford Basin, said: "The Police came and asked us if we could get a barge over to the man. He was soaking wet through after falling in the canal and had landed on the wrong side of the canal for firefighters to get to him."

Station Officer Larry Green, from Leigh fire station, said: "It was fortunate that a barge travelling in the opposite direction was passing by the man. It was strange rescue, we only had to get him 10 feet across the canal to an ambulance but we just could not get to him. We had thrown over a ladder but he could not climb up because his ankle was so sore.

"We had called out a rescue barge from Eccles fire station and if the man had been in dire agony we would have looked at one or two other things to get him away safely. But the barge came at just the right time."