it s considered a last resort by firemen standards but one they knew they had to do. within seconds, jim lee was being lowered down, scaling the burning building. go to your right, jimmy, go to your right. he was burning, you could with hear him yelling. i remember seeing him look up at me with that hood up and i said let s go. reporter: with the hope holding them beginning to burn lower it down nice and easy, lower them down. reporter: the team of firefighters successfully lowered the two men to safety. this guy is burned. down, down. reporter: seconds before the rope snapped. looking back up and see the fire out the windows, the rope was on fire, the reality set in that, wow, we really just we saved a guy s life. legitima legitimately group of guys working together in seamless fashion and saved this guy s life. what a feeling. reporter: that feeling came again you look familiar!
20-year career. as a manhattan apartment building ignited in flames, more than 200 members of the fdny raced toward it. these five men among them. the roof was on fire. there was fire coming out of the shaft. there was fire at all around it. reporter: the firefighters never met before but that day, an 81-year-old man trapped in his home brought them together. frank called me and told me that we had a guy at the window. my thought was possibly a fire escape to try to get to him. but in the photos there was no rear fire escape in this tenement. grabbed the rope, dumped the rope on the roof and andy and steve came up, joe, and we just went to work. reporter: a rope rescue is a dangerous technique, which hasn t been attempted by this department in five years. because it s considered a last resort by firemen standards. but one they knew they had to do. within seconds, jim lee was being lowered down, scaling the burning building.