Ex-EastEnders star 'lucky to be alive' after Thai waterfall accident left him trapped for three days with broken leg

'The problem was I couldn’t move to get out of there. I’ve got a broken leg and I’m missing a kneecap. It needs complete reconstruction,' says Paul Nicholls

Nicholls rose to fame for his Eastenders role and was highly applauded for his portrayal of schizophrenia (YouTube / EastEnders)

Former Eastenders star Paul Nicholls is seriously injured in a Thai hospital after spending three days trapped at the foot of a waterfall with no food.

The actor, who played Joe Wicks on the BBC soap opera, plunged from a waterfall in a remote part of the jungle in Koh Samui island.

The 38-year-old was only rescued after a local villager stumbled across a deserted motorbike which the actor had used to travel to the far-flung spot. After contacting local police, he discovered it had been hired by a Briton who had since gone missing, the Sun reported.

After searching for hours through the dense jungle vegetation, rescue-workers found Nicholls ensnared in water at the bottom of Khun Si falls.

Nicholls was semi-conscious and suffering from hypothermia because severe injuries had left him unable to climb out of the water for the duration of three days. He had not eaten in three days and hospital medics said he had caught a bug and described him as being seriously ill.

Speaking to the newspaper, the Bolton-born actor said: “I'm lucky to be alive I had a phone with me but I fell from such a height into the water it was unretrievable.”

He added: “It took such a long time to find me. It’s an understatement to say it wasn’t a great situation. It wasn’t that I was lost.

“The problem was I couldn’t move to get out of there. I’ve got a broken leg and I’m missing a kneecap. It needs complete reconstruction.”

Footage obtained by the paper shows the actor deliriously crying out in pain as he is carried away on stretchers by rescue workers and medics.

A source told the paper Nicholls had travelled to Thailand a week ago as he was "between filming".

“He needs surgery. But it’s going to cost £90,000 for him to have it in Thailand," the source was quoted as saying.

Nicholls rose to fame for his Eastenders role, being highly applauded for his portrayal of schizophrenia and appearing in multiple magazines such as Attitude, Gay Times, Heat, Just Seventeen, and Radio Times as a teenager in the 1990's. He then appeared in Goodbye Charlie Bright and had a cameo in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason before more recently starring in ITV series Law & Order and Channel 4 drama Ackley Bridge.