FIREFIGHTERS were called to help a 27-stone woman who had fallen into a deep ditch this afternoon.

Anthony Bond

FIREFIGHTERS were called to help a 27-stone woman who had fallen into a deep ditch this afternoon.

Emergency services were called to Riverside Road in Ipswich at 12.10pm.

On arrival they found that the 27-stone woman, believed to be in her 40s and from Riverside Road, had fallen into the ditch and needed help to get out.

Ambulance service officials said paramedics could not lift the woman and called in fire crews.

Three fire engines as well as a turntable ladder attended the incident and used a ladder, ropes and a basket stretcher to lift the woman into a specially reinforced ambulance.

The St John Ambulance service said one of its fleet of bariatric ambulances - designed to carry patients up to 70 stone - had been used to ferry the woman to hospital.

The woman was taken by ambulance to Ipswich Hospital with a suspected broken leg.