Hero rescuer catches girl by the legs and hauls her to safety as she plunges from a 14th floor balcony in Russia
- A rescuer managed to save a teenage girl as she fell from a tower block
- The girl was saved as she was about to plunge around 140 feet to her death
- The teenager, who is believed to be aged 15, banged her head during the ordeal
- Authorities are currently investigating why the girl almost fell to her death
A hero rescuer was seen on a dramatic video catching a teenage girl who fell from a 14th floor balcony in Russia.
The emergencies worker was on the 13th floor and grabbed her legs as she plunged towards the ground 140ft below.
Police are seeking to establish the reason the girl, believed to be aged 15, fell from the balcony.
This is the dramatic moment a rescuer saves a 15-year-old girl who had fallen from the balcony more than 140 feet above the ground
Authorities are currently investigating how the girl had been placed in such a perilous position
Rescuers had erected a large inflatable mattress beneath the balcony in case the girl fell
An air cushion had been placed on the ground below.
The girl banged her head during the rescue but was not seriously injured.
She is being treated in hospital.
Watching residents broke into applause as she was saved, according to local media reports.
The rescuer was named as Mikhail Dmitriev, 32, said the girl ‘slipped and fell’.
‘My thoughts were only about saving her life, not letting her die,’ he said.
‘I managed to catch her by the ankles and together with her neighbour called Mikhail, who at that moment was holding onto me, we pulled her onto the balcony.’
The girl had been sitting on the edge of her balcony when she was home alone in Irkutsk city on Wednesday evening.
‘Her hands slipped and the screaming girl began to fall,’ he said.
‘But I already held her by the ankles and dragged her into the apartment.’
Dmitriev, a father of two and rescuer with the Russian Emergencies Ministry, was told by his own 11-year-old daughter Diana who saw the video one son ill media: ‘Dad, I’m proud of you’.