Members of the Medway Coastguard team were called to a marina after a man injured himself on an icy pontoon and fell in the river.

The volunteers were called out shortly before 1am yesterday after the man slipped on the pontoon and injured his leg on the side of it as he entered the water.

The boat owner, who has not been named, is thought to have suffered a broken leg during the fall.

When the volunteers arrived he had managed to back on his boat, which was moored at the marina in Manor Lane, Borstal.

The volunteers helped dress the wound and put dry clothes on the man. He was then lifted off the boat after a splint had been put on his leg and taken to hospital by ambulance crews.

A spokesman for the Medway Coastguard team said: “We cannot advise people enough about the use of life jackets when on or near the water.

“In the sub-zero temperatures throughout the night this could easily have been a totally different situation.”