An elderly woman has miraculously survived a 4-story plunge from her apartment house balcony in the town of Shakhtyorsk as gale force winds swept Russia’s Far Eastern Sakhalin Island, RIA Novosti reported, citing local hospital officials.
“The old woman went out on the balcony to have a smoke only to be swept away. She was hospitalized with multiple injuries,” a source at the hospital in Uglegorsk told RIA.
According to local media reports, the 70-year-old lady was lucky enough to land on a fresh snowdrift below. Because deep snow prevented the ambulance from reaching the house, she had to be taken to hospital inside the bucket of a construction loader that happened to be nearby.
The incident left the woman with a broken arm and three broken ribs and a concussion.
Sakhalin Island has been pummeled by a powerful cyclone packing winds of up to 40 meters a second (93 miles an hour) for two days now.
The local ferry line has been closed and the airport in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is operating according to current and forecasted weather information.
Gale-force winds have swept off the roofs of many apartment houses, a local day care center and blacked out dozens of residential areas.
