An afternoon walk with friends along the Thames near Culham turned into a rescue operation involving the emergency services and a boat.

A woman in her 30s was walking with three friends along the river path on the Clifton Hampden side of Culham lock on December 1, when she slipped and broke her ankle.

Her friends called for help.

An ambulance crew considered it too dangerous to carry the woman on a stretcher half a mile back to Culham Lock, because the path was boggy and flooded in places.

So they alerted the fire service, who arrived in a rescue vehicle fitted with a boat.

The woman was placed on a rescue stretcher and lifted on to the boat.

But when they arrived back at the lock, they faced another problem because of the steep bank from the river to the side of the lock.

A line was fixed to the stretcher, which was hoisted to the top.

The woman was transferred to another stretcher and taken by ambulance to the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.

A fire service spokesman said: "The river level is very high at the moment and parts of the path along the Thames are tricky to negotiate.

"It would have been too risky for the ambulance team to have tried to carry the stretcher so they called for our help.

"The obvious solution was to take the injured woman by boat."