A MAN WAS hospitalised after falling from a bonfire in Derry last weekend.

The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) received an emergency call at around 11.30pm on Friday night following reports of an incident in the Sperrin Park area of Derry.

An NIAS spokesperson said the service dispatched two emergency crews to the incident.

“Following assessment and initial treatment at the scene, one patient was taken to Altnagelvin Hospital (in Derry) by Ambulance,” added the spokesperson.

It’s understood that he was later taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast and that he was seriously injured in the incident.

The Sperrin Park bonfire was one of several built throughout Derry to mark the annual Apprentice Boys’ Relief of Derry commemoration, which took place on Saturday.

The commemoration celebrates one of the longest sieges in British military history when William of Orange, or King Billy, was supported by Protestants in Derry in shutting the gates of the walled city to keep out the Jacobite army.

The accident is one of the latest to have occurred during unionist bonfires in recent years.

Last month, a man was hospitalised after he fell from a bonfire in Newtownards in Co Down.

A year previous, 36-year-old John Steele died after falling from a bonfire in Larne, Co Antrim, that was over 50 feet in height.