{"id":99954,"date":"2017-04-26T21:51:18","date_gmt":"2017-04-27T01:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=99954"},"modified":"2017-04-26T21:51:18","modified_gmt":"2017-04-27T01:51:18","slug":"high-drama-as-firefighters-rescue-woman-atop-crane-in-downtown-toronto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/04\/26\/high-drama-as-firefighters-rescue-woman-atop-crane-in-downtown-toronto\/","title":{"rendered":"High drama as firefighters rescue woman atop crane in downtown Toronto"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>
A woman who spent hours suspended high above a construction site after scaling a crane in downtown Toronto was rescued Wednesday morning by being strapped to a rappelling firefighter and lowered to the ground as dozens watched in suspense from below. (Photo: oatsy40\/ Flickr<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TORONTO \u2013A woman who spent hours suspended high above a construction site after scaling a crane in downtown Toronto was rescued Wednesday morning by being strapped to a rappelling firefighter and lowered to the ground as dozens watched in suspense from below.<\/p>\n

Cheers erupted from the crowd of onlookers as the pair’s feet hit the ground around 8:30 a.m., bringing the dramatic, hours-long rescue operation to a safe conclusion.<\/p>\n

The woman, believed to be in her mid-20s, was then handcuffed and handed over to paramedics. Her name has not been released and police say she is facing six counts of mischief.<\/p>\n

Her perilous climb nonetheless remained a mystery even to those tasked with retrieving her, with firefighters saying there was no indication why she scaled the crane in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n

They believe, however, that she climbed up the crane, crawled out on to the end of it, and slid down a cable to the large pulley device where she got stranded.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe has to tell me how she did it because she has to be our new training officer for high-angle (rescue) because it’s impressive,\u201d said Rob Wonfor, who rappelled down the towering machinery with her.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was hard enough for me to go up with ropes and harnesses and she free-climbed that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wonfor said he didn’t ask her for an explanation during the rescue because they needed to stay focused. But he noted the woman didn’t seem frightened and was \u201cvery calm.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was a brave girl, she helped me when I got there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A 22-year veteran of the fire service, Wonfor said the rescue was unusual in that people who climb cranes typically stay on the shaft, which was not the case Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The woman had been perched on a gently swaying large pulley device called the block \u2013measuring only about 15 centimetres by 60 centimetres \u2013for at least four hours and was clinging to a steel cable when Wonfor reached her.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s an outstanding success,\u201d Toronto Fire Chief Matthew Pegg said of the operation. \u201cWe train for this, although we’ve never seen one like this before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pegg said crews were called to the scene at a construction site on Wellesley Street near Yonge Street at about 4 a.m.<\/p>\n

Wonfor and a police negotiator began climbing up the crane around 6 a.m. and the firefighter rappelled down to the woman on the pulley device around 8 a.m., Pegg said.<\/p>\n

The firefighter then carefully strapped himself to the woman and the pair were slowly lowered onto the ground about half an hour later.<\/p>\n

The plan had initially been to lower the block onto a nearby parkette once the two were harnessed but Pegg said the crane operator indicated the block might swing and the moving cables could cause some pinching.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was brought down safely, she didn’t appear to be in any distress,\u201d Pegg said. \u201cThis was a very technical, very complex rescue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wonfor also said he was feeling fine, although fatigued after carrying heavy equipment on an already intense climb.<\/p>\n

But the firefighter had no intention of resting, and noted he was heading to play in a hockey tournament for the remainder of the day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2013A woman who spent hours suspended high above a construction site after scaling a crane in downtown Toronto was …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":99955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[18395,18396],"class_list":["post-99954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-fire-fighters","tag-woman-atop-crane","mauthors-paola-loriggio","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}