A daring rescue was captured on camera last week when a policeman saved a suicidal man from jumping from an apartment building in Ningbo, China.

State television footage shows the desperate man, clad in blue jeans with no shirt on, straddling the gap between two window ledges at least four stories above street level as an anxious crowd looks on.

One policeman distracted the man by talking to him through a loudspeaker, allowing other cops to get up to the roof and rappel down the side of the building, out of the would-be jumper's line of sight, the Telegraph newspaper reported, quoting Chinese state television.

An officer then swings around the corner of the building, grabs the distraught man around the waist and pins him to the side of the building. Rescuers inside can be seen reaching through the windows to secure the man's feet with ropes so he can't leap to his death.

Police believe the man was threatening to commit suicide because of family problems, the newspaper reported.