A teenage boy was recovering in hospital today after plunging almost 50ft from a rope swing into a woodland stream.

Emergency services spent two hours trying to find the teenager after the rope swing, attached to a tree, snapped and sent him plummeting to the bottom of a ravine.

The youth, who has not been named, was with a friend in St Leonard's Forest, near Horsham, when the accident happened last night.

The friend scrambled down the ravine and pulled the youth from the water but was unable to move him any further.

He ran almost a mile to the nearest road to flag down a passing motorist.

Paramedics treated the boy at the scene for leg, arm and shoulder injuries, before he was taken to Princess Royal Hospital, at Haywards Heath, where he was being treated today.