Woman blown off balcony in Russia in gale-force winds

The 65-year-old woman went out for a smoke on the balcony and was blown off, landing on a snowdrift below.

Russian media reports say that gale-force winds have blown a woman off her balcony on the Pacific island of Sakhalin.

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The Interfax news agency reported Tuesday that the 65-year-old woman from the town of Shakhtyorsk went out for a smoke on the balcony and was blown off, landing on a snowdrift below. An ambulance couldn’t reach the house so the woman had to be taken to a hospital in the bucket of a construction truck.

Local news website Uglegorskiye Novosti says she fell from the fourth floor, breaking an arm and three ribs, and leaving her with a concussion.

Sakhalin in Russia’s Far East has been hit with a series of snowstorms since Monday with wind gusts in the area of the woman’s fall reaching about 150 kph.