We took our eye off him for one second... drama as boy, 7, is stranded 40ft up rock
STANDING enticingly in the middle of a picturesque beach, it was obviously too great a temptation to resist.
And before long craggy Goscar Rock was being scaled by this adventurous seven-year-old.
But as these pictures show, his half-term holiday escapade turned to terror when he found himself stuck 40ft up, too scared to climb back down.
His ordeal, on North Beach in Tenby, West Wales, lasted for almost two hours – with the sea, which cuts off the rock at high tide, coming in all the time.
The unnamed boy’s parents dialled 999, leading to a full-scale rescue with police, firemen and a coastguard helicopter at an estimated total cost of £10,000. The youngster was eventually carried down a ladder to safety by firemen.
The boy, from England, was unharmed and described as being ‘very relieved’ to get down after the incident on Thursday.
Passer-by Robert Marshall, 51, who took these photos, said: ‘I could see through the camera lens that the boy was very scared. His shoelaces were hanging down as well so I think he might have tried to climb up with his shoelaces undone.
‘The mother was at the foot of the rock. In one of the pictures you can see someone in an orange hat halfway up talking to the lad; I think that was his dad.’
Another witness said: ‘I heard him being told to come down when he was only about 12 feet up. It would have saved a lot of bother. But he kept on going.’
A third added: ‘The little boy looked confident going up, but then he panicked and got too scared to come down after he realised how high he’d gone. He was forced to cling on for ages.’