A COASTGUARD boss has warned of the dangers of fossil hunting after a man was injured by falling rocks at a Dorset beach.

The 41-year-old, who had been collecting along the shoreline at Seatown, near Bridport, suffered leg injures and was airlifted to hospital.

Like hundreds of others, he had been drawn to the Jurassic Coastline to hunt for fossils but its thought he was caught in an isolated rock fall.

Paramedics and coastguard officers attended the scene, where the man received on-the-spot treatment for a suspected broken leg.

He was airlifted by coastguard helicopter, to Dorchester’s Dorset County Hospital at 5pm on Saturday.

Portland coastguard sector manager Rob Sansom said: “As far as I’m aware he was fossiling and some rocks fell of the cliff above him and he got caught on the leg.”

Mr Sansom explained there were various degrees of fossiling, ranging from professional collectors to families taking their children out along the shoreline.

He said: “Poking about the rocks close to the shore is normally all right – its reasonably safe.

“But around the Seatown and Charmouth areas there are some very dangerous places, including possible mud slides around Black Ven.

“Most professional fossilers know what they are doing – they are aware of where the dangers are and take proper precautions.

“Problems can arise with people who are not aware of the danger spots. What we would try to discourage is people using hammers to knock lumps out of the cliffs because they don’t know what they are disturbing above them.”

Emergency services have also urged people to check the tide timetable before going beyond normal beach limits.

Most years coastguard and RNLI crews are tasked to rescue inexperienced fossil hunters from remote beaches in the Lyme Regis area, after they are trapped by the tide.