Man dies while trying to prank his girlfriend

A man has died while trying to prank his girlfriend with a 'fake' suicide attempt.

An inquest has been told Danny Munro, from Staffordshire in the UK, performed the stunt on August 1, 2018, while his girlfriend asked him to stop, telling him it "wasn't funny".

The man had a history of similar pranks, including covering himself in tomato sauce and stumbling into a room claiming he had been stabbed.

He'd also previously pretended to be suffering anaphylactic shock from eating nuts.

Girlfriend Amy Leaman said she had warned him about the jokes ahead of the tragedy, explaining that it took some time to realise he was in distress during his most recent prank.

He died three days later at Royal Stoke University Hospital.

"A few weeks before he put tomato sauce on himself and told me that he'd stabbed himself but I could smell tomato sauce and realised it was a prank," she told the inquest. "Then we had a conversation about the boy who cries wolf."

She said he never talked to her about intentionally hurting himself and that he "loved life".

His mother, Alison Rigby, told the inquest her son was "always a joker".

"He had an amazing sense of humour, he just had that much of a big personality," she said.

A post-mortem found the man died due to massive brain swelling resulting from compression of the neck.

North Staffordshire Senior Coroner Andrew Barkley concluded death by misadventure.

"The circumstances are very unusual and this appears to be a prank which has gone wrong and led to the death of Mr Munro."

Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.