NEW YORK (WHDH) - As a Manhattan apartment building ignited in flames, about 250 members of the FDNY raced toward the building, with five men among them.
The firefighters had never met before, but that day, an 81-year-old man trapped in his home brought them together.
A rope rescue is a dangerous technique that hasn’t been attempted by this department in 5 years because it is considered a last resort by fire fighter’s standards, but this was one time they knew what they had to do.
Within seconds, Jim Lee was being lowered down, scaling the burning building.
“He was burning at one point and you could hear him yell, ‘I’m burning,'” Lee said of the man. “I just remember sort of seeing him, looking up at me with the hood up and I said to him, ‘let’s go.'”
The firefighters then got the chance to meet the man they saved – Jim Duffy.
Check out the video above to see footage of the daring rescue.
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