A trainee reporter just two weeks into his first job had to be rescued from a car by firefighters.

But fortunately for The Chad in Mansfield, Adam Raistrick had not crashed a company car on his way to an interview.

The 22-year-old was playing the part of a car crash victim to help Nottinghamshire firefighters train for a national extrication competition.

And for something a little bit different, Adam filmed his safe removal from the inside of the car while photographer Shirley Watson shot footage from outside.

Around 50 minutes of video was recorded by the pair which was edited down to just two-and-a-half minutes and posted on The Chad’s website.

Adam, who finished his newspaper training at Sheffield’s Norton College in January, said: “I had a hand-held pocket camera that I had at arm’s length, filming as the fire service cut through the car with saws.

“It was quite noisy and we had to turn the volume down for the video.

“The original plan was that I would be inside and filming myself and doing a commentary.

“But when we got there the fire service said it worked better for them if I was acting literally as a victim.

“I just had to pretend to be mashed up in a car crash and film at the same time.

“It was really good, also in personal terms of me getting multimedia experience.”

Digital content manager Tom Pegg added: “This made a great video-piece as well as a two-page spread for the paper.

“We are proud of the video piece because we think the use of two different cameras really brings it to life.

“We’ve been working hard on the quality of our video reports and I think this shows here.”

To watch Adam’s exploits visit The Chad’s website.