A narrow boat owner has described rescuing a reveller from drowning after he fell from Kingston bridge into the Thames.
The man, described as in his early 20s, screamed ‘help me’ before he was pulled from the river at about 1.30am on Sunday morning.
His rescuer said he either jumped to escape a fight with clubbers dressed in Halloween face paint or was thrown.
Paul Peck, 44, who moors his boat outside Bar Essence, said: “There was a bit of an altercation outside Bar Essence. I heard screams of ‘help me’.
“There was a man floating in the middle of the river.”
Mr Peck said the young man was waving his arms in and out as if he was drowning.
He said: “I paddled out to rescue him and pulled him on to the boat.
“He had blood coming out of his mouth. He was two or three minutes from drowning.
“He would have definitely been a goner if I hadn’t helped.”
The young man’s name was Daniel or Dan, Mr Peck said.
He said: “When I pulled him out he told me ‘I don’t know what happened. I got whacked and the next thing I got thrown off the bridge’.
“He had obviously been drinking. The story I heard was he was being pursued and decided to chuck himself off the bridge to get away from them.
“A few of the guys had Halloween painted faces. I’m a bit concerned about the safety of these guys. They are young men but they are also someone’s children.”
A spokesman for London Ambulance said: “We were called just before 1.30am on October 27 to reports of someone in the river.”
They sent a medic in a car, an ambulance and a hazardous area response team and took a man in his 20s to hospital.
Were you there? Call the newsdesk on 020 8744 4244 or email newsdesk@surreycomet.co.uk
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