A crane operator has been praised for his brave and “incredibly skilful” rescue of a man who was lifted to safety from a burning high-rise building.
Glen Edwards, 65, used the winch he was operating to move a cage towards a workman trapped on the building in Reading, Berkshire, which was surrounded by flames and thick smoke.
Royal Berkshire’s Fire and Rescue Service chief fire officer Wayne Bowcock has said without Mr Edwards’s efforts, it might have been an “entirely different scenario”.
“I would like to add my thanks to the crane operator for an incredibly skilful rescue under extremely difficult circumstances. Without their actions, we may be looking at an entirely different scenario,” Mr Bowcock said.
“On behalf of the service, I would like to extend our best wishes to the two people who were rescued from the building and wish them a speedy recovery.”
On Thursday, emergency services were alerted to the fire shortly after 11.30am, with 50 firefighters at the scene alongside an Aerial Ladder Platform and Incident Command Unit.
Two people, including the individual rescued from the One Station Hill building, were taken to hospital for smoke inhalation, neither of which are being treated as severe cases.
In the video of Mr Edwards’s efforts, a workman can be seen trapped on the building roof hiding from an inferno before a cage appears behind him.
A workman was lifted to safety by a crane after a fire at a high-rise building in Reading— (PA Media)
The workman is then able to climb into the cage, before it is hoisted up above the flames and moved away from the burning building.
Mr Edwards admitted it was a “very close call” made harder by windy conditions, but he managed to get the cage down and rescue him.
“I was no more than 20 metres up in the air and I looked out my left-hand window and saw a guy standing on the corner of the building.
“I’d only just seen him and someone said ‘can you get the cage on’, so that was it, I got the cage on and got it over to him the best I could,” he said.
Redwood Consulting, on behalf of Station Hill, said: “We activated our fire emergency plans immediately, the emergency services were notified and are currently on site.
“The safety of those on site and the wider public is always our first priority, and the site has been evacuated as a result.”
The £750m Station Hill development, close to Reading station, is intended to be a business and living quarter for the town.
