As a furious blaze raged inside a high-rise apartment building in Berlin, one woman was rescued by scaling the building’s exterior and taking a terrifying leap more than two stories down to safety.
The fire erupted in an 18-story residential high-rise building in the German capital’s Friedrichshain neighborhood around 6:30 a.m. Friday, The Associated Press reported.
The blaze started in an apartment on the 11th floor and spread to the apartment above it, with flames shooting from several windows and thick, black smoke pluming from the building, Berlin police said.
The dramatic rescue, captured on video, shows a woman in sweatpants scaling the exterior of an 11th-floor apartment, edging perilously along a window ledge as giant orange flames and black smoke billow from the apartment beside her.
Two floors below her outside, a firefighter is seen in the basket of a turntable ladder used for elevated rescues.
She spends several tense minutes trying to climb down to the apartment below, but can’t find footing. Finally, she lets go of the ledge and takes a heart-stopping leap, falling into a rescue basket held by the firefighter, who catches her.
Police said the woman, who was not identified, jumped roughly two floors down into the basket and was safely caught. She sustained minor injuries and was taken to a hospital for treatment, police said.
In total, the fire affected 115 people. Twenty-five were rescued or brought to safety via fire-escape hoods on the stairwell and a turntable ladder, police said. Thirteen people suffered minor injuries and received emergency medical treatment, with some transported to nearby hospitals for further care.
Authorities described the response as “especially strenuous and requiring a significant number of personnel” given the number of people affected and the scale of the fire.
Eighteen fire engines, two aerial ladder trucks, nine ambulances and more were deployed to quell the blaze and carry out rescues. The cause of the fire is not yet known.
