BRAVE youngster Thomas Carter feared his finger would have to be cut off when it became stuck in a climbing frame.

The six-year-old was playing in the garden with his brother William, eight, on Sunday when he managed to trap his finger in a draining hole of the climbing frame tarpaulin.

His mum Anne-Marie, of Westwood Drive, Little Chalfont, thought Thomas was playing an April Fool but soon realised it was no joke when his finger started swelling up in the frame.

She said: "The more I moved it, the worse it was. I thought they were just joking. That's why it took me half an hour to call the fire brigade. We tried to put washing up liquid on it but it just didn't work."

Firefighters eventually freed the youngster, a pupil at Little Chalfont Combined School, after taking him and part of the frame to the fire station.

Thomas said: "I thought they might have had to cut my finger off and that my finger would have been just left there. I have put my finger in before but it didn't get stuck as my fingers were smaller." He added: "I thought I would have to take the climbing frame with me to school."

Despite the pain, the commotion turned out to be fun for the youngster when he and his brother got a ride in a fire engine to have the ring cut off at the station.

Leading firefighter Mark Watson, at Amersham Fire Station, said: "We had to cut the ring from the material on the climbing frame, as he was stuck on all fours for half an hour plus.

"It was swelling up and had to be released. But he enjoyed the whole experience. He was very well behaved."