Emergency services pulled off a careful rooftop rescue in Elanora Heights on Friday afternoon after a man was rescued from the roof of an apartment building on Elanora Road following a fall from scaffolding that left him with a serious leg injury.
The incident unfolded just after 4:30pm on Friday, 7 August, when NSW Ambulance and Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) crews from Narrabeen Station were called to the apartment building, which sits above a row of shops. A 70-year-old resident had used the builders’ scaffolding in place on the building to get up to the roof, apparently wanting to check on work being carried out there. He lost his footing and slipped roughly one to two metres, landing awkwardly and sustaining what was suspected to be a broken upper right thigh.
A neighbour quickly sought help from an off-duty paramedic living nearby, who assessed the injured man and, recognising both the seriousness of the injury and the difficulty of the location, called for FRNSW to attend with a stokes litter — a specialised stretcher used for rescues in confined or awkward spaces.
Three NSW Ambulance crews ultimately responded, among them an Extended Care Paramedic and NSW Ambulance Inspector Christian Holmes, who had been briefed by their off-duty colleague before arriving. Working alongside firefighters, the teams made their way onto the roof via the scaffolding to reach the patient. He was given pain relief and his leg was splinted while crews worked out how to safely bring him down.
Getting him off the roof proved more complicated than it might sound. The scaffolding itself was ruled out as a descent route — the narrow, steep climb made it too dangerous to carry a loaded stokes litter. A Ladder Platform truck from Crows Nest Fire Station was also considered, but shortly after 5:00pm, crews settled on a more practical solution: lifting the man through the window of a nearby apartment and carrying him down the building’s internal stairs.
The plan worked. His concerned wife was waiting at street level as he was brought out and transferred to an ambulance stretcher. He was taken to Northern Beaches Hospital in a stable condition, departing the scene just before 5:45pm.
The rescue was a reminder of how quickly a well-intentioned inspection of building works can turn dangerous — and of the skill and resourcefulness emergency crews bring to situations that don’t fit a neat playbook.
Published 8-August-2026
