Heart-stopping moment firefighter jumps from a ledge and grabs a suicidal woman to stop her leaping off a third-floor windowsill

A FIREFIGHTER has pulled off a heart-stopping rescue by leaping out of an apartment window to prevent a suicide.

But the daring mercy mission nearly ends in disaster when he almost drops the woman he was trying to save.

Video of the incident in Henan Province in China shows the distraught woman perched above the third-floor window from which she had been refusing to come down.

The woman refused to engage with the rescue crew and periodically tilted her body forwards as if she was about to jump, according to CCTV.

"I cannot stand it any longer, I’m so tired,” the woman is reported as saying.  

But the fire crew down below were unable to set up a landing cushion because there was no room.

A woman in the downstairs apartment can be seen trying to talk the woman down.