Coastguards are warning people that jumping of rocks can be dangerous after a teenage boy was taken to hospital with spinal injuries after coasteering on the Lizard.

The 13-year-old had to be taken to hospital after he was injured when jumping off rocks with an organised group at around 5pm on Sunday afternoon.

Falmouth Coastguard requested The Lizard lifeboat crew launch at 5pm yesterday afternoon after they received a 999 call from a party of adults and children coasteering at Bass Point reporting a 13 year old male with a suspected back injury.

The Lizard lifeboat was launched along with a search and rescue helicopter from 771 Squadron, RNAS Culdrose.

The Lizard lifeboat launched within 13 minutes of being paged and they were on scene within 5 minutes. Their daughter ‘Y’ boat was launched with two crew members on board.

The casualty was located in the water being supported by other members of the coasteering party. The casualty was taken from the water in a stretcher and along with one of the coasteering instructors, was taken to The Lizard lifeboat and then airlifted into the helicopter before being transferred to the Royal Cornwall Hospital Treliske in Truro and after a full check up the child was discharged from hospital.

This comes only three weeks after The Lizard lifeboat and the coasteering team had taken part in a joint exercise to train for an incident like this.

The coasteering instructors had simulated this exact incident where a person had jumped into the sea landing awkwardly and hurting their back. The lifeboat then practiced using their stretcher to lift the casualty from the water.

Mechanic/second coxswain Dan Atkinson said: "This was a well organised group of coasteerers. They did everything right and it was very good that we had only just recently practiced this type of incident and we have update training with them on a regular basis. Again the emergency teams all worked very well together and we are just please the young lad is ok.

A Falmouth Coastguard spokesman said: "This is a warning to people that jumping off rocks is a dangerous activity."