A Nigerian woman and her three children
trapped on the fourth storey of a burning building in Pyeongtaek, South Korea,
miraculously survived without injuries.
In her bid to draw public attention to the nightmare, the
30-year-old woman, identified as Mrs Precious Enyioko, dangled her baby through
the window as smoke billows from two floors below.
This drew the attention of
onlookers, who screamed and waved their hands as she held out her terrified
one-year-old infant whose legs were kicking furiously before dropping her to
the crowd. But this was after Airmen persuaded her to throw the kids from the
building.
Another three-year-old child followed, then another
four-year-old, before the woman leaped from the window, the only escape route,
CNN reported. Remarkably, all survived without injury. United States Air Force
Master, Sgt. Daniel Raimondo, told CNN he was walking to dinner at the weekend
when he saw clouds of smoke and set off in that direction.
On assessing the scene, Raimondo and a colleague discussed
how to help and resolved to get some blankets from a nearby store.
They corralled others to help hold the blankets, then tried
to persuade the mother to drop her children to safety. First, Sgt. Melanie
Scott said the woman was understandably reluctant to let go of her children.
“You could tell she was scared. She didn’t want to,” Scott said.
Raimondo said the “last baby was the most difficult in my
eyes, she just wouldn’t let her go for some reason.” He said he repeatedly
begged the mother: “Please just throw the baby down! I remember her screaming
(at) the baby, “I love you, I love you. …” Next thing you know she dropped the
baby.”
“You’re alive!” By this time, the mother had to jump. “The
smoke and the fire was just horrendous,” Raimondo said. “You could barely even
see her at that point.” The woman fell more heavily than the children and hit
the ground beneath the blanket, but someone had had the foresight to put
cushions underneath it,” he said.
“We carried her into a safe location into a salon,” he said.
“I just kept yelling and talking to her, ‘You’re alive! You’re alive!’. She
flew like Supergirl.”
On Monday, the rescued family met the people who saved their
lives and thanked them.
“I don’t know how I would explain my thanks,” said the
children’s father, Prince Enyioko.
“I was so surprised, I see the people gathering here to
rescue my family, especially the military.”
Raimondo said he sat with the first child to be rescued in
the aftermath Saturday and held her while her mother, suffering from smoke
inhalation, sat in shock. “I let her know that she was very brave and she flew
like Supergirl. She just smiled,” he said. “It was an emotional experience. The
good news is they made it through alive.”
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