Rescuers from the Civil Protection Department were involved in an unusual operation last night when they had to use their tower ladder to lower a man from his eighth floor hotel room after he injured himself in the bath.

The incident happened at the Diplomat Hotel, Sliema, at around 10 p.m.

Hotel staff immediately called a doctor who decided that the man - a foreigner in his fifties - needed to go to hospital.

However, because of his weight - some 150 kilos - ambulance staff could not take him down on a stretcher and the Civil Protection Department was called to carry him out from the balcony.