TWO teenage girls sparked a major rescue early on Saturday after falling 20 feet from a bridge.

The girls were with two boys walking along Barrow Bridge Road in Bolton just after 2.30am when they decided to hide from the driver of an oncoming car.

One boy ducked behind a tree, the second boy jumped over a low wall and the two girls, a 16-year-old from Sharples and a 15-year-old from Halliwell, leapt over what they thought was another wall.

Unfortunately the wall was part of a bridge and the girls plummeted 20 feet on to the rocky bed of the stream beneath.

One of the boys ran for help to a nearby house and the fire service, police, ambulance and Bolton Mountain Rescue Team were quickly on the scene.

Firefighters found the girls lying in the shallow stream and on the river bank, being comforted by two boys, one aged 18 from Bolton and the other a 15-year-old from Liverpool.

Both girls were conscious but were believed to have suffered spinal injuries. One also had a severely broken arm.

Emergency service workers had to scramble down a very steep slope to reach them and fire crews illuminated the scene with massive lights.

An in-shore rescue boat was also brought in from Eccles but was not used because the water was too shallow to launch it.

After about 45 minutes fire crews and members of the mountain rescue team lifted the girls on to special spine board stretchers and carried them along the slippy river bed for several yards until they reached a gentler slope and could lift them up to the road to waiting ambulances. They were then taken to the Royal Bolton Hospital for treatment.

Bolton Central Station Officer Dave Pimblett said: "It's fortunate that the stream wasn't flooding. It becomes a real torrent when there has been a lot of rain."