This job’s going to kill me . . .
Fears of selfie-taking tree surgeon before fatal 60ft fall
A TREE surgeon took a selfie 75ft above the ground after joking the job was going to kill him – then plunged to his death the next day.
Paul Daniels, 36, was using a chainsaw to trim branches off the top of a row of conifers when he was killed, apparently because his safety rope was not hooked up correctly.
An inquest heard the father of two had raised concerns with his family about his business partner accepting a £2,500 quote to prune 76 trees in just four days.
His mother told the hearing he had joked to her: ‘It’s going to kill me with this job [sic].’
Less than 24 hours after taking the selfie – a practice criticised by police – he was cutting another conifer when the severed branches cascaded down on top of him and he fell up to 60ft to his death.
A jury returned a verdict of accidental death but coroner Alison Mutch called for better communication between climbers and colleagues on the ground.
Mr Daniels, known as ‘Magic Man’ due to his name, was regarded as ‘very particular’ about safety, the hearing in Stockport was told.
But he had concerns about business partner Jessica Chandley agreeing they could prune 76 trees in just four days at nearby Hazel Grove golf club last November.
Helped from the ground only by engineer Oliver Bancroft – then a trainee – they set about a job which one expert said was ‘impossible’ to complete in the agreed time.
During the four-day inquest, Miss Chandley said they decided not use an elevated cherry picker platform as the ground was too uneven. Mr Bancroft told the hearing he had been helping Mr Daniels with a rope.
He said: ‘He climbed back into the conifer and I couldn’t see him at all because there was so much foliage. I heard him shout “No Ollie, wait, don’t pull”.
‘I didn’t pull but the rope went slack, the tree started to fall. He came out of the tree and the tree fell too, he fell to the bottom and the tree landed on top of him.’
Mr Daniels’s mother Donna told the hearing: ‘He loved his job but he didn’t like the company he was working for and he didn’t like the job they were on.
‘He didn’t feel they were getting enough money for it and the job was far too big. He said to me “It’s going to kill me with this job”.
Louise Owen, mother of Mr Daniels’s two children aged 13 and 15, told the inquest he had been concerned about the pay.
Peter Pollard, an arboricultural officer at Stockport Council, said: ‘You wouldn’t usually attach a lifeline rope to the top of a tree because that’s what you’ll be felling.
‘However, sometimes you forget to unhook the lifeline from the top, and that’s how I suspect Paul got pulled down.’
Mr Pollard said he personally could not complete such a job in four days but said Mr Daniels had been acting ‘professionally’.
Detective Inspector Roger Edwards, who investigated the death, said: ‘I believe this to be an accident, however we found pictures of Paul taking selfies up a tree and this is a dangerous practice.’
‘It landed on top of him’