This young Chinese woman threatened to jump off the fifth floor of a hospital building unless she was given a cigarette.

Jia Li Pan, 24, had gone to the hospital in Zhongshan, in Guangdong province, southeast China, for a counselling session after encountering difficulties including losing her job.

She was in the waiting room when she asked if she could have a cigarette from another patient.

When he refused, she lost her temper and started shouting, going onto the balcony where smokers were taking a break and reportedly threatened to jump unless one of them gave her a cigarette.

By that point all the smokers had fled and a crowd had gathered below the balcony – alerting police.

One officer gave the young woman a cigarette and then after she was offered her fifth cigarette he used the opportunity to pretend to light it – and grabbed her to pull her to safety.

A police spokesman said: ‘I don’t believe that she has mental problems, but she has had some bad news lately and it seems to have made her act a bit irrationally.’