A woman was saved from drowning this afternoon after she jumped off Cromer Pier.

The woman, 67, was brought safely to shore after two quick-thinking people on the pier threw life buoys down to her.

She has been taken by ambulance to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital suffering from hypothermia.

Cromer Lifeboat coxswain John Davies praised the woman's two rescuers and said she 'very likely' owed her life to them.

The incident happened at around 1.30pm and drew a large crowd, according to a police spokesman. The coastguard alerted Cromer RNLI but the woman had been brought to shore before the inshore lifeboat was launched.

When Mr Davies arrived on the scene the woman was lying underneath the pier. He carried her up the beach with a passer-by and wrapped her in a thermal blanket until the ambulance arrived.

'It was very cold, very windy and very foggy down there,' he said. 'She was fully conscious. I don't know why she jumped.

'The two who saved her were real Good Samaritans. They saw a fellow person in trouble and reacted fast. If it wasn't for them and the fact that the buoys are on the pier, I think it's very likely she wouldn't have made it. A few more minutes and it would have been too late,' he added.

The two rescuers are understood to be from Blackpool and Hertfordshire.

Mr Davies said the woman had jumped from about halfway along the pier and had grabbed one of the buoys thrown to her. She had then been pulled ashore.