The police, fire and ambulance departments were all called into action last night to rescue two people who had jumped into the Yukon River.

At 1:30 this morning, friends of the 20-year-old man and the 19-year-old woman called 911 to say the two had been swept down the river after jumping in for a swim, Whitehorse RCMP reported today.

The group had been drinking on the sandy peninsula just south of the bridge at Miles Canyon when two of them decided to get in the water.

"They were swept downstream on the current,” RCMP spokesman Sgt. Don Rogers explained.

"They were going along the side of the river and got sucked into a crevasse in the wall. The water forced them in there and prevented them from getting out.

"They definitely made a poor decision going in – if they weren't stuck in that hole, they would have been swept down the canyon.”

The RCMP put a jet boat into the river and were able to throw a lifejacket to the man and pull him to safety.

The woman, however, wedged in too close to the wall for the boat to safely reach her, Rogers said.

"They eventually managed to get in a position where they could get a rope down and then pull her out to the boat,” Rogers said.

One police officer was injured trying to get to the young woman.

"It wasn't an easy rescue by any stretch of the imagination,” Rogers said of the hour-long operation.

The two were taken toWhitehorse General Hospital and released at around 4 a.m.

"We are very grateful to the Whitehorse Fire Department for providing assistance, and the Whitehorse Ambulance Service as well,” Rogers said.