TWO New Year revellers sparked off a full-scale search and rescue operation after deciding to take a short cut home through a huge Hampshire wood.

One of the young men tripped and fell as they made their way through Stoke Park Woods between Bishopstoke and Fair Oak, and sustained a suspected broken leg.

His friend left to raise the alarm but then could not remember the exact location of his injured friend.

Ambulance personnel were already searching the maze of woodland tracks when Eastleigh fire crews arrived.

Acting leading firefighter Paul Christopher said: "We went in with a Land Rover and found the ambulance people first. Then my driver and I left the vehicle and went on foot."

"After about an hour of searching, the injured man was found and the firefighters set about finding a way to bring their vehicle to him."

"When the ambulance people were with him we went back to survey as much as we could and find a way down all the tracks and hard standing to get the Land Rover to him.

"We put him and the ambulance people on the back and brought them out."

The alarm was raised at 2.33am and the casualty's leg put into a splint at the scene.