Woman leaps from 11th floor of burning Berlin building into rescue basket 2 storeys below

A woman trapped outside a burning apartment in Germany clung to an 11th-floor window ledge before dropping two stories into a firefighter’s rescue basket as flames and thick black smoke closed in around her.

The fire – reported early in the morning on Aug 14 – began in or near an 11th-floor apartment at a residential high-rise in Berlin’s Friedrichshain neighbourhood. It spread to the floor above.

A video of the rescue, which has been seen more than 3.3 million times, shows the woman, dressed in sweatpants, sitting on the window ledge and edging to a corner about 35m above the ground, as flames were spewing out of a neighbouring window and black smoke drifted towards her.

A firefighter can be seen in the basket of an aerial ladder in the video, but it could reach only as high as the ninth floor.

For several minutes, the woman tried to lower herself to the basket, but could not find a secure footing.

But, as the fire moved closer, she finally released her grip of the ledge and fell roughly two floors towards a fighter standing in the narrow basket of the aerial ladder.

The firefighter caught her as she landed.

“That was a real nail-biter,” a fire brigade spokesman told German broadcaster rbb24. “You don’t experience something like this every day.”

The woman, who was not identified, suffered minor injuries and was taken to a hospital.

At least 115 people were affected by the fire. Some 113 residents were evacuated, while 25 people were rescued or guided to safety using smoke-escape hoods in the stairwell and an aerial ladder.

Thirteen people suffered minor injuries, most from smoke inhalation, and received emergency treatment. Five were taken to hospitals.

Images taken after the fire showed heavy smoke damage inside the 11th-floor apartment and blackened walls outside it and several floors above.

The cause of the fire remained under investigation.