WATCH: U.S. Marshals Get Heart-Stopping Scare as They Try to Apprehend Sex Offender

The federal task force was in the midst of delivering warrants to convicted sex offenders who failed to register their addresses with law enforcement and had begun the work in the predawn hours. The group includes U.S. Marshals and members of the Randolph County Sheriff’s office.

They had delivered a warrant elsewhere in the same complex before knocking on the door in the video.

As the officers made their way through a list of 30 warrants, they arrived at the apartment in the clip to capture a 26-year-old offender convicted of having child sex abuse material.

They knocked on his second-story apartment door.

“When I saw that video and at the scene saw the length of decking that had collapsed, it’s a miracle they weren’t more seriously injured,” recalled Steven Lewis of the U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of Missouri.

The video shows the heavily armed officers bracing themselves to enter the apartment when the decking beneath them starts to break off from the building and drop.

“Whoa!” someone yells, as another officer rushes over to help those who fell.

A top official praised the group for their reaction in the unfathomable moment.

“The fact that they hit the ground in two seconds and there was no accidental discharge of any firearms — that shows the training and discipline of the task force officers and deputies that were involved,” said U.S. Marshals Assistant Chief James Tapp.

In the end, the sex offender wasn’t home and later turned themselves in, NBC reported.