A teenager in intensive care unplugged his neighbour's life support machine because the noise was keeping him awake.

Frederik Moelner, 17, said he had been trying to sleep as he recovered from a car crash but the noise of the life support machine as it helped 76-year-old Hermann Berghof breathe kept waking him up.

A police spokesman from Landshut in southern Germany said: "He told us the noise was getting on his nerves and he thought this was the best way to make sure he got peace and quiet.

"Luckily the medical staff acted promptly and reconnected the life support machine. If there had been any delay the old man could have died."

Moelner is now being questioned by police.