Residents of the De Leyhoeve residential care center in Tilburg were shocked by a fire in the complex on Saturday evening. To their surprise, they suddenly saw a procession of emergency services entering the parking lot, after which they had to be evacuated in a hurry. “It looked like Ukraine,” says one resident.
“I have never experienced this before,” says Ton Zandboer, a shocked resident who has been living in the Tilburg residential care center for ten years. From his room he looked straight into the parking lot, where several emergency services suddenly arrived because of the fire. “I thought: what is happening here? Until that moment I didn’t realize anything.”
When Zandboer walked into the hallway, he heard from fellow residents that something was wrong. “They said a number of floors were flooded.” A little later the fire brigade came to see him. “They advised me to leave the building and seek temporary shelter at Van der Valk.”
“We had to get out as quickly as possible.”
Two women on the first floor were also warned by neighbors. “She came to tell me there was a fire, so I immediately walked to her,” says one of the women, pointing to the other. The fire brigade arrived shortly afterwards. “We had to get out as quickly as possible.”
The residents are still shocked by the events. “Of course you don’t experience something like this often,” says resident Zandboer. The situation makes him think. “It could just as easily have happened to me. All those emergency services here. It looked like Ukraine.”
The women will also not soon forget the incident. “Luckily my husband keeps us calm,” they laugh.
It is still unclear whether residents will be able to return to their homes on Saturday evening. The municipality of Tilburg arranges shelter for people who cannot return.
Here you can read all the stories about the fire in the De Leyhoeve residential care center in Tilburg.
