INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS

This picture shows the large crane which was scaled by a woman who threatened to jump off it. Pictures: Sarah Makoe and Masi Losi

In a dramatic five-hour rescue operation, Pretoria firefighters and members of the police air wing plucked a city woman to safety seconds before she could fall to her death off a 50m high construction crane.

The drama, involving two police helicopters and dozens of firefighters and paramedics from across Pretoria, unfolded when the woman, in her 40s, climbed up a tower crane at the abandoned The Villa shopping centre in Wingate Park on Monday morning.

The woman parked her car and handed her cellphone to a passerby whom she asked to call her husband, before climbing over a metal fence into the guarded construction site.

Making for the crane, the woman apparently struggled with a security guard who tried to stop her before she managed to scale the crane.

Once at the top, battling gusts of wind, she edged her way out along the arm of the crane before hanging off the edge with one arm.

Screaming abuse at onlookers below and emergency personnel, the woman threatened to use a stun-gun on herself.

Firefighters George Vosloo and Mervyn van Ginkel who brought a woman down to safety from the arm of a large crane. Picture: Sarah Makoe

INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS

As police blocked off De Villebois Mareuil Drive and pushed back shoppers and motorists, curious residents stood in gardens watching the drama unfold. For hours rescuers were kept at bay by the woman, who eventually relented to negotiator Lieutenant-Colonel Henk van Heerden’s requests to allow two firemen to bring her water, coffee and a pen and paper.

Firefighters George Vosloo and Mervyn van Ginkel - who recently received a valour award and has just returned from Japan where he assisted in the international earthquake relief effort - climbed up the crane before making their way carefully across to the woman.

They stopped midway when she started screaming at them to leave her alone. Once they had pacified her, they made their way closer where they spent at least half an hour persuading her to let them help her.

“It was touch and go. It was really tough,” said Vosloo.

Vosloo said the woman, who clearly did not suffer from vertigo, made him witness her will before she stood up and moved towards the edge of the crane’s arm. She then wanted water and to use a cellphone to talk to her family below, and her boss. Using a ruse, the firemen pointed down to the ground where they said her boss was waiting. As she turned to look, Van Ginkel reached out to grab her.

The two men held on tightly to her, even turning her upside down to attach her to a harness.

They comforted her until she was airlifted off the crane by a police Squirrel helicopter. Vosloo continued to console the woman as she was placed on to a stretcher and put into a Netcare 911 ambulance.

Van Ginkel said it was a relief that nobody was hurt.

Joan de Beer, Tshwane Emergency Services Department head, said she was extremely proud of the team.

“They risked their lives to rescue the woman in a joint effort between police, emergency services and paramedics,” she said.

The woman’s family, who watched the rescue from the construction site, did not want to speak to the media. - Pretoria News