man whose car plunged 80ft from a cliff and landed in the sea has escaped practically unharmed - and joked straight afterwards that a Red Bull he drank had made him 'fly'.
The driver, who has not been named, careered off of the A259 in Sussex. His Ford Focus was moving fast enough that it cleared the concrete promenade at the base of the cliffs and landed in the sands.
Remarkably, he suffered only minor injuries from the accident, which took place just after midnight.
After the landing the man was able to walk from his car back to near the base of the cliff near Roedean, near Brighton, and meet emergency services.
And he was in such good spirits that he was able to joke about his terrifying ordeal - saying that he'd taken off as a result of a Red Bull energy drink he'd had earlier that night.
A member of the fire service who was involved in the initial response said: 'He just had a Red Bull - and it was that. That was making him fly.'
The man was later lifted up the cliff-face with ladders and a stretcher and taken to a waiting ambulance.
A Newhaven Coastguard spokesman said: 'The casualty was secured into Newhaven Coastguards rescue stretcher and then using some of our cliff rescue equipment we were able to slide the stretcher up the ladders.
'With nine members of various agencies on the three ropes and two of the Newhaven team at the top of the ladder we were able to bring the casualty up from the beach where they were handed into the care of paramedics.
'All the time the recovery operation was ongoing a member of the Brighton lifeboat crew who had swum ashore in a dry suit was inspecting the vehicle to check for any secondary casualties.'
The wreckage of the vehicle, which smashed and crumpled dramatically on impact, was lifted off of the beach this morning and transported away.
Brighton and Newhaven lifeboat crews also made a brief sea search in opposite directions while two coastguard teams searched the beach a few hundred metres each side of the car in case anyone else was in the water.
Chief Superintendent Nev Kemp, the commander of Bright and Hove's police tweeted after the incident: 'Incredibly a man escaped without serious injury after his car went over the cliff near Roedean just after midnight and ended up in the sea.'
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