POLICEMEN and a passerby used a garden hose to drag a man to safety from the freezing waters of the River Derwent.

The officers tied the hose around the man's chest to rescue him from the river at Malton.

The 46-year-old, from Norton, fell into the freezing water, off Railway Street, while walking home from the pub along the riverside footpath. A passerby heard his screams for help and alerted the two police officers.

The trio then found some garden hose and wrapped it round the stricken man's chest so they could drag him onto the bank.

Two fire crews from Malton then attended the scene and lifted the man up the bank, and kept him warm until paramedics arrived.

He did not require hospital treatment.

Firefighter Mark Weatherill, a crew manager at Malton Fire Station, said the man was lucky to be alive.

"The police managed to get him up on to the bank and we took it from there," he said.

"We wrapped him up with thermal blankets because he didn't know how long he'd been in the water and there was a danger of hypothermia.

"He was clearly under the influence of alcohol and fell off the path down the riverbank.

"In the end he was fine, but clearly very embarrassed."

Mr Weatherill said the passerby found the man in the water clinging to the side of the riverbank at about 10pm on Saturday.

"He is lucky to be alive," he said.

"If he had fallen in an hour after the pubs had closed no one would have heard him and hypothermia would have set in.

"I don't know where the police found the hose from."

Updated: 13:12 Monday, October 24, 2005