By Dirk Böttger, Jörg Bergmann and Matthias Lukashewitsch
Eight residents were seriously injured in an apartment fire in Berlin-Wilmersdorf on Tuesday night – two of them critically.
As the Berlin fire department announced on Tuesday, there was a fire at around 2.40 a.m. in an apartment on the first floor of a six-storey apartment building on Aachener Strasse.
The rescuer from Aachener Straße: Murat Köse (39) put a ladder on the balcony on the first floor to save the tenants of the fire apartment. Photo: Joerg Bergmann
Murat Köse (39), landlord in the ground floor bar in the fire house, was the first to react. Passers-by came into his pub and shouted: “It’s on fire, it’s on fire!” A mother and her son were standing on the balcony of the apartment on the first floor. Flames and smoke in the apartment behind him. Murat Köse: “I put the ladder on the balcony. The son came down unharmed. But his mother fell off the ladder. She stayed on the ground.” She was probably in a panic and missed a rung and fell.
Paramedics and emergency doctors took care of it: The woman, Goi S. (46), was critically injured during the rescue attempt with the ladder. Her son Singa S. (17) was rescued unharmed from the apartment fire thanks to Murat Köse.
One person had to be resuscitated Photo: Spreepicture
A woman (28) in the apartment on the second floor was also critically injured. “The woman suffered severe burns and smoke inhalation,” a fire department spokesman said. “She was taken to a clinic under conditions of resuscitation.”
Four other tenants were also seriously injured and rescued via the stairwell. Firefighters got them out of the house with so-called fire escape hoods. They also suffered smoke inhalation and were taken to hospitals.
The other 30 residents in the house were able to save themselves – apparently also because resident Jochen Münch (38) rang many tenants from the apartments before the fire brigade arrived. He, his wife and the dog were able to escape from their third floor apartment.
Tenant Joachim Münch (38) rescued his wife and dog from the apartment on the third floor – he then rang the other tenants from their apartments Photo: Joerg Bergmann
145 firefighters were on site and extinguished the flames. Around 30 residents were cared for in a bus. The extinguishing work continued in the morning. It is not yet clear how the fire started.