A man who scaled a 10-metre high lamp post in Birmingham and got stuck at the top for more than hour has been rescued by firefighters.

It is not known how the unidentified man managed to scale the post, but a spokesman for the fire service said he feared he may have taken an illegal high.

Two fire crews were called to Grove Lane near Holly Road, Handsworth, and used a rarely deployed hydraulic platform to reach the man and bring him down.

Eyewitness Raj Rattu, from Handsworth, was driving on Grove Lane when he noticed the man acting strangely.

He said: “I noticed a young man by himself acting weird on the side of the road near the lamppost.

“He had his top off and was waving his arms around and dancing like he was at a music festival.”

Rattu added: “As I drove past him he was pushing against the lamppost and it looked like he was getting ready to climb it.”

West Midlands Ambulance Service said they were called to reports of a man in “a precarious position at the top of a lamppost” just before 10pm on Saturday.

He was treated for a hand injury and taken to Sandwell Hospital.

A spokeswoman from West Midlands Police said: “Police were called to Holly Road in Handsworth just before 10pm on Saturday following concerns for a man who had climbed a lamppost.

“Following attendance from all emergency services, the man was removed by the fire service after about an hour and taken to hospital to be checked over.”

Crews from Highgate and Handsworth Fire Stations staged a complex operation using a 44ft ladder and a hydraulic platform to eventually bring him down.