FAIRBANKS – A Fairbanks woman was rescued by firefighters in a platform truck as she fell from the top floor of the Northward Building this morning.

At about 9:15 a.m., Fairbanks fire and police departments responded to a call about a woman threatening to jump from an eighth-floor apartment.

The woman is in her mid-30s and is a Fairbanks resident although not a resident of the apartment building, according to Lt. Matt Soden with the Fairbanks Police Department.

Police and firefighters found the woman with her feet dangling out the window on the Fourth Avenue side of the building. The street was closed off while firefighters brought in a platform truck, a 100-foot aerial device with a bucket at the end for firefighters to stand in.

“As the ‘bucket’ was approaching the eighth floor … the person fell out. Two FFD personnel were in the bucket at the time and were able to catch the person as they fell,” the Fairbanks Fire Department stated in a news release. “It is unknown if the person jumped or fell.”

The woman was taken to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital for evaluation.

Relatives of the woman also came to the apartment and assisted negotiators, said Soden, who responded to the call along with a police negotiator. Soden said the woman was communicative. Asked what brought the woman to the ledge, he said he couldn’t say.

“There are a number of things that happen to folks that lead them to have problems,” he said.

Soden was in the next window when the woman fell. From his perspective, “it looked like she kind of stepped out over their bucket,” he said. “She was hanging out over the building and she was starting to slip.”

The entire incident from the initial call to the recovery took about 20 minutes, according to Assistant Fire Chief Ernie Misewicz.