A boy was rescued from the River Wensum in Norwich this afternoon.

It happened at around 5.20pm near the Novi Sad Friendship Bridge.

Andy Charlwood, who lives nearby, said he saw the boy sitting on the wooden structure, which sticks out of the river and surrounds the bridge, before he fell in.

Mr Charlwood, 24, said: 'I grabbed a towel and went down there. There is a couple who live there, they actually have an emergency metal ladder for this kind of thing, but they've never used it. They threw it down and he was able to shimmy over and climb up.'

A crew from Norfolk Fire and Rescue Service (NFRS) and an ambulance crew were also on the scene.

The boy is not believed to have been injured.

Last month a woman was pulled from the same stretch of the Wensum, close to the Queen of Iceni pub, prompting a debate over whether members of the public should go into the water to rescue someone who had fallen in.

Garry Collins, the head of fire prevention and protection at NFRS, said: 'It can mean one fatality potentially becomes two or three. Of course one is tragic but we don't want multiple drowning incidents.'

But Alastair Brooke, from Swanton Morley, who jumped into the to help rescue the woman last month said: 'If someone had not done it and she had drowned how would you live with yourself?'