A three-year-old boy was trapped for almost three hours after getting his head wedged between rocks on a beach.

Rescuers raced a rising tide as they chipped away at the rocks with jack hammers and hydraulic cutting gear to free the "extremely distressed" child.

Toddler Oliver Brown's panic-stricken parents, thought to be local, had tried to get him out after he climbed into a crevice on the rocks at Rock-A-Nore in St Leonards but they called the emergency services when they realised he was stuck fast.

His head was lodged in a tiny gap which wedged his face against the rocks, making it difficult to move him without hurting him.

The rescue team tried to coax him to relax to help ease him out of the crevice but he had frozen in fright during the terrifying ordeal.

In the end, a doctor had to sedate him while paramedics gave him fluids to keep him hydrated. His anxious mother talked to him throughout the ordeal in a bid to reassure him while coastguards tried to reassure the equally anxious parents.

The rescue team included paramedics, firefighters, coastguard and even the army who turned up shortly after they were alerted at 1.21pm yesterday.

But despite all their experience and equipment it was still two and a half hours before his sedated, limp body was set free and taken to hospital.

Dave Standen, Coastguard watch manager, said: "I don't think anybody had come across anything like this before.

"The toddler was very scared and agitated and the rescuers couldn't get him to relax or calm down so he had to be sedated and it didn't even work the first time. His mother was also very distressed."

Paramedics and a doctor were first on the scene but, within minutes, they called the Dover Coastguard, requesting urgent assistance from the coastguard cliff teams.

Hastings Coastguard Rescue Team was immediately called out and Hastings and Battle fire crews also attended.

A coastguard vehicle provided communications on the cliff top to the teams below who were trying to free the boy.

The inshore lifeboat ferried vital equipment to the rescue teams by sea.

The rescue was so difficult help was sought from cave rescue specialists and the Assault Pioneer Regiment was dispatched. Finally, at 3.40pm, the rock split and firefighters carried the boy was freed.

Barry Woodward, of Dover Coastguard, said the boy was pulled out with ropes attached to the top of cliffs. He had been just above high water so there was no risk from the tide.

He was wrapped in a foil blanket and the lifeboat took him and the paramedic back to Hastings Lifeboat Station where his parents were waiting.

He was taken to the Conquest Hospital in Hastings were he was in a stable condition last night.

Janine Bell, a spokeswoman for Sussex Ambulance Service, said: "He went through an extremely traumatic incident and he needed to be checked over."

The boy's father thanked the efforts of the rescue teams.