Conflagration: Mother, three children trapped in house on fire rescued

Blanket used to break fall of two-month old toddler thrown from the third floor.

LAHORE:

A two-month old baby and his mother received burn injuries in a fire that broke out at their house on Walton Road on Friday afternoon. The mother wrapped the child in a blanket and threw it out of a window from the third floor of the four-storey building to people standing below who caught the baby.

Rescue-1122 officials said the baby’s feet and his mother Razia Bibi’s right hand had burn injuries. Two other children in the house were unhurt.

Factory Area Sub-Inspector Zulfiqar, who was at the scene, told The Express Tribune that the people in the street caught the baby and the other two children were rescued by Rescue-1122 officials. He said the fire had erupted due to an electric short circuit at New Pak China Sanitary, a shop on the ground floor of the building. The shop owner, Parvaiz Iqbal, was at his shop at that time. The fire spread and soon reached the third storey, where the family lived, he said.

The sub-inspector said that the house was soon engulfed in smoke. Several people gathered in front of the building and the woman and children trapped in the house cried out for help from the windows.

He said the bystanders told her to throw her youngest child to them as they held a blanket to break the fall. Razia Bibi wrapped two month-old Ahmad Hassan in a blanket and tossed him out of the window. He landed safely in the blanket but his feet had burn injuries.

Rescue-1122 officials then reached the scene and evacuated the rest of the family from the building. SI Zulfiqar said that there were so many people around the building that it took very long for the ambulance and fire trucks to make their way to the building. The bystanders were hindering the operation, he said.

The sub-inspector said that the family had rented the house. A police case has not been registered as the fire had erupted due to an accident, he said.

A Rescue-1122 official told The Express Tribune that the baby was first taken to the Children’s Hospital which turned him away because they did not have a burn unit.

It was taken to Mayo Hospital where the mother too was taken later. He said seven fire trucks were used to put out the fire.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 7^th, 2014.