A dramatic rescue took place after a man got stuck on his roof.

Paul Findlay was attaching a booster wire to the aerial on his roof when he became stuck.

“I went up on the roof, up the little ladder leading from the flat roof,” he explained.

“I climbed up to the chimney, and housemate James Steggles threw the wire up to me.

“I attached it to the aerial and had climbed halfway down the roof when I started to slip.

“I just ran back up and grabbed hold of the chimney.

“I was holding on for my life.”

His friend Jeff Jones tried to persuade him to come down.

“I tried to help him, but he just froze,” Mr Jones recalled.

“We thought he was going to fall.”

Mr Findlay, 36, dialled 999 from his mobile while clinging onto the chimney stack.

A fire engine from Colchester was sent to the scene in Stalin Road, Colchester at about 2.30pm yesterday, but as the aerial ladder platform (ALP) had already been called, they decided it was easier to wait for that than to try and persuade him down their ladder.

Mr Findlay said: “My hands were shaking when I got in the cage.

“I’m very grateful to the fire brigade – if they hadn’t rescued me I would have been up there forever.”

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