As fire raged at the 21-story high-rise in Berlin, Germany, a woman had to summon the bravery to jump when a firefighter couldn’t get close enough to rescue her from a ledge
The woman dangles from the building as fire engulfs the floor (Image: YouTube)
A woman was forced to leap from the 11th floor of a burning building and into the arms of a firefighter after becoming trapped as the flames closed in on her.
She took desperate measures to escape the fire in Berlin, Germany, after she had dangled from a ledge knowing she would plunge to her death if she fell. Terrifying footage shows her precariously hung from the side of the building as fire ripped apart the room right next to her.
As the inferno rages inside the huge building, she is faced with a 35ft drop as a rescue cherry-picker eventually gets closer to her. But the size of the life-saving mobile lift isn’t quite enough – and she has to risk the drop as the flames creep closer and closer to her.
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She eventually lets go and lands in the rescue basket with the firefighter before being lowered to safety from the 21-story Berlin high-rise. The scenes unfolded in Berlin’s Friedrichshain district where miraculously nobody died.
The fire injured five people and made some residents consider jumping to escape the flames before it was brought under control. All of the building’s residents were evacuated.
The blaze broke out around 6:30am on Friday in the Friedrichshain neighbourhood near the Ostbahnhof train station. It was brought under control in under three hours.
The terrified woman is perched on a ledge as fire creeps closer to her(Image: YouTube)
Eventually she jumps and is caught by the rescue worker (Image: YouTube)
It started in an apartment on the 11th floor and spread to the unit above. The fire’s cause is not yet known.
The fire came as German authorities ordered almost 2,000 people to evacuate their homes after a wildfire gripped the western region and spread towards a village close to the border with Belgium.
Residents were told to leave the village of Gey and move to an assistance centre set up at a primary school in the nearby village of Strass.
Nobody died in the fire in Germany(Image: Christophe Gateau/DPA via AP)
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