A FORMER lawyer says he is lucky to be alive after falling down an 80ft bell tower.

Tony Cresswell was doing maintenance work on a bell at the top of St Botolph’s Church, The Hill, Northfleet, on Monday morning (July 6) when the floorboards he was standing on caved in.

The 54-year-old from Sevenoaks plummeted 20 feet to a lower level, breaking his right heel and tibia and damaging his lower spine.

Three men were working alongside him, and they called the emergency services who arrived within minutes, with firefighters rescuing Mr Cresswell from the tower and paramedics rushing him to hospital.

Speaking in his bed in Darent Valley Hospital yesterday (July 8), Mr Cresswell said: “I’m just glad to be here, glad to be alive.

“I could have fallen through the hole in the centre of the tower, down to the next level, and I do not think I would have survived that.”

Firefighters from Thames-side station in Coldharbour Road rescued Mr Cresswell, and crew manager Ray Kilbourne said it was “difficult because of the poor access” to the tower.

They had to carry the retired patent lawyer through a small door at the side of the tower to the top of an external staircase, and then lower him down a ladder to the ground.

Mr Cresswell said: “I was conscious while waiting for the emergency services to arrive and being rescused, and in a lot of pain, but I was never worried for my life.

“The firefighters and paramedics were brilliant, as the staff at Darent Valley have been.”

Mr Cresswell will be moved to Kings College Hospital in London to see an orthopaedic surgeon who will assess whether he will make a full recovery and how long it will take.

However, he said: “I’m so relieved to have survived the fall that I’m not worried about whether I have lasting injuries.”

Mr Cresswell took up bell ringing three years ago when he retired, and began carrying out maintenance and repair work on bells as a volunteer a few months ago.