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Even a trapeze artist would envy this catch.
Firefighter Sean Heeran was 30 feet up on an aerial ladder when a trapped Brooklyn man jumped from a third-floor window — and the Bravest hero reached out with one hand and incredibly caught the 200-pound guy.
“When he leaped, it was completely sudden,” said Heeran, 37, of Ladder Co. 132. He had raced up the ladder and was almost in position to rescue Joseph David, 59, who was sitting on the windowsill of a smoke-filled apartment at 523 Rogers Ave. on Aug. 14, 2011.
But the window behind David shattered, and the terrified man plunged toward the street.
“I was able to snag him. I grabbed him with my left hand under his right armpit,” Heeran recalled.
A nanosecond later, the firefighter used his right hand and “scooped him under his left armpit.”
Heeran, who was leaning over the ladder holding David, said both owed their lives to firefighter Timothy Riches, who grabbed David’s belt buckle.
David “was screaming, ‘Don’t drop me!’ ” as they got him safely to the ground, Heeran said.
Heeran was nominated for a Post Liberty Medal in the Bravest category by the FDNY.
The father of two was once an equities trader. But after his brother, also a trader, was killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, “My mentality on life kind of changed,” said Heeran, who joined the FDNY in December 2003.