A WOMAN in her seventies was airlifted to hospital after falling 9ft from a concrete wall in her garden.

Janine Davis, of Northford Road, Dartmouth, was airlifted to hospital on Sunday after cutting her head and sustaining bruises. She was conscious but bleeding from the head as her husband Graham called an ambulance at 2.45pm.

Crews were concerned about the extent of her injuries and strapped Mrs Davis to a stretcher before driving to Coronation Park from where the Devon air ambulance flew her to Derriford Hospital.

Mrs Davis was badly bruised and needed 40 stitches in her head but sustained no major injuries and hopes to be home this week.

Mr Davis said: 'I'm delighted that everything's fine, it was quite a distance she fell.

'She had scans done and everything is okay, she's just bruised.

'Considering anything could have happened to her spine or her pelvis it's not as bad as we thought.

'All the medical staff have been great and she'll be coming home soon.'

Passers-by stood in amazement at Coronation Park as the air ambulance hovered for almost 10 minutes waiting for the ground to be cleared.

Onlooker Hayley Rundle said: 'The skill involved in landing that helicopter was just excellent, I'll never know how they get to some of the places they do.

'The transfer from the vehicle to the helicopter was very swift, there were only about 20 minutes between landing and taking off again, it was very impressive.'

The rescue comes only a week after the air ambulance came to the aid of three year-old Alban Harris, whose chest and legs were scalded by a pot of tea.

He was driven by land ambulance to Coronation Park where he was taken by air ambulance to Bristol's Frenchay Hospital and is now on the road to recovery.

Devon Air Ambulance Trust is celebrating its 20th anniversary and is described on its website, http://www.daat.org">www.daat.org, as 'outstanding, independent and efficient air ambulance service, available to all, 24 hours a day'. It has completed almost 18,000 missions countywide since it began operating in 1992.