Two boys plunge from burning apartment into arms of heroic bystanders

Harrowing video captured the moment two brothers dropped from a burning apartment in France into the hands of people more than 30 feet below — and miraculously survived their three-story plunge with just minor smoke inhalation.

As thick, black smoke spewed skyward and flames raged feet away, a toddler was dangled outside a window before being dropped to the screaming crowd on the outskirts of Grenoble on Tuesday.

His older brother then let himself fall from the blazing apartment into their arms.

Local media reported that the boys only suffered some smoke inhalation in the ordeal in Saint Martin d’Hères. They were hospitalized along with 17 other residents for inhaling the toxic fumes.

Four of the heroic bystanders who caught them also were taken to the hospital to check for possible broken bones from the impact of the jumps.

Athoumani Walid, 25, a student in Grenoble, broke one of his wrists as he helped catch the kids.

He sprang into action when he heard screams after seeing the flames from his nearby apartment. Several other people also gathered below the burning apartment.

“We didn’t know what to do, but we walked up” to the apartment, Walid told the Associated Press. “We wanted to break the door but it wasn’t possible.”

So they rushed back downstairs and shouted for the boys to jump into their arms.

“When they jumped, fear disappeared. What mattered was to catch” them, he said.

Walid said he hoped the dramatic rescue will change people’s perceptions of the Villeneuve neighborhood, where there is a large immigrant population.

“We are told it’s a ‘sensitive’ neighborhood,” he said, “but yesterday we showed we are here for each other, and we save each other.”

Grenoble Mayor Éric Piolle congratulated the residents on the rescue.

“Hand in hand, they allowed the two little ones to get out unharmed from this drama,” he wrote on Facebook.

“True to the tradition of solidarity and mutual aid of Grenoble, particularly perennial at Villeneuve all year long as we saw during the lockdown (food distribution, neighborhood mutual assistance, concert on the balcony…), it was together that they were able to rescue the kids,” Piolle wrote.

“Wishing a very good recovery to those who were slightly injured during this impromptu rescue.”