Firefighters rescue ill man from first floor window of Hampstead flat

Traffic blocked off in Hampstead High Street Picture; Tim Goss (Image: Archant)

Hampstead High Street was closed from about 10am to 11am while emergency services – including ambulances and fire engines – worked to get the man to hospital.

A witness said the combination of the man’s condition and the building’s layout meant they could not bring him down the stairs.

Tim Goss said there were “major traffic problems” while the fire brigade tried to gain access to the building.

An electric cable blocked them, he said, so firefighters had to cut through it – all while the patient remained strapped to a stretcher.

He added: “Try as they might, they simply can’t find a way to get the boom of the cherry picker round, over or under the wire.

“It [was] not until 10.55 that they finally extract the patient through the window.”

A spokesman for London Fire Brigade said the service was called at 10.05am to assist the London Ambulance Service.

An aerial platform was deployed alongside one fire engine and one rescue unit.

They succeeded in bringing the patient down and had left the scene by 11am.

A spokeswoman for the London Ambulance Service said it sent two ambulances and a single responder car after receiving a call at 9.22am.

She added: “We treated a patient at the scene and took them as a priority to hospital.”