A man, who was engaged in pruning a tall palm tree lost his grip and was left dangling upside down and had to be rescued.

The accident took place in Urbanización El Capricho in Almuñécar on Wednesday night around 22.00h, leaving the worker dangling some six metres up until the fire service arrived to get him down.

Fortunately, the man’s safety equipment arrested his fall but as he was upside down he was unable to right himself.

The first to arrive was a Policía Local patrol car, whose occupants probably had a good snigger before jumping out and into action.

“The rescue operation was a complicated affair,” explained the Spokesperson for the fire department, adding, “we had to rig him up with a safety line as he was hanging head down, before we attempted to free him from his crampons, righting him and bringing him down the ladder.”

The worker, J.V.G.A. was first attended to by the ambulance crew before going through a thorough check-up in the medical centre.

Editorial comment: no doubt his workmates will now refer to him as ‘The Bat’ owing to having hung upside down in a tree at night…

(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)