FDNY Rescues Man Dangling From His Ankle Three Stories Over Williamsburg Street
It’s usually only in action movies that people are lucky enough to get ensnared in tangled wires while plummeting off a rooftop towards certain death. But on Tuesday, this cinematic twist of fate saved a Williamsburg man’s life. After falling from a the roof of a four-story building, he got wrapped up in some cable wiring and dangled by his ankle, upside down, until FDNY superheroes came to rescue him.
Firefighters responded to 378 Hooper Street near the corner of South 2nd Street at 7:11 p.m. on Tuesday. “We could see that he was hanging by little more than a cable wire,” firefighter Joe Andres told the News. “He could have dropped at any point,” said Captain Daniel Keane. “We didn’t know when the cable wire was going to snap.”
Their rescue mission involved using a type of Kevlar rope that rock climbers use, called webbing, securing him so that “if he fell from the wiring he wouldn’t fall too far.”
“We had some unsuccessful attempts to bring him in through a window,” Andres said. Ultimately, Andres had to get into a harness and lower himself down from the roof. “As soon as I got even with him I basically bear hugged the victim,” Andres said. “I was thinking, ‘Don’t let this guy go. No mater what happens just hold onto him.’” After about 30 minutes of struggle, they finally pulled the man through a window. He’s now safe and sound in Woodhull Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.
[via The NY Daily News]