Two students have been fined €95 each after they were rescued from a 50 metre tall crane by the fire service in a drunken prank.

Police responded to a call from a passer-by who saw the pair on the crane on a building site in Leiden at 1.30am on Monday. Officers shone spotlights on the students and ordered them to climb down. When they refused police called out the fire service.

Firefighters were initially unable to reach the students because their rescue ladder was too short. Eventually they climbed into the crane and led them down to safety. The whole episode lasted around an hour.

‘We went out straight away because it’s a dangerous situation,’ a police spokesman told Omroep West. ‘They had been drinking and came up with the plan in the pub.’

The 20-year-old students were each fined €95, but will not have to pay the fire service’s expenses. ‘We don’t have any experience of doing that,’ said a spokesman.