TORONTO -- Residents from a community in southwestern Alabama are praising a bystander who was caught on camera rescuing a woman from a three-alarm fire that tore throughan apartment complex.
Crews from the Mobile Fire-Rescue Department (MFRD) in Mobile, Alab., were dispatched Wednesday afternoon after answering a call for a building on fire just after 3 p.m. local time.
Neighbours called 911 and said that three people were possibly trapped inside a unit of the two-storey apartment building, according to an incident report from the MFRD.
When firefighters arrived, the fire had already engulfed eight apartment units, or about one-third of the complex. After their assessment, search-and-rescue crews discovered that there was only one trapped resident, a woman who was struggling to escape from her first-floor apartment.
Video captured by a local NBC affiliate shows flames and thick smoke billowing from the building as a firefighter attempted to rescue the woman from her window. As the firefighter was scrambling to put on his personal protective equipment, a man who was standing nearby jumped in, grabbed the woman and helped pry her from the window.
NBC 15 identified the rescuer as Quinn Parrish. Parrish later said it wasn’t his first time jumping into action to try and save another person from a dangerous fire. He said he tried to save a young girl from a similar situation in the nearby community of Seabreeze nearly a decade ago.
"A little girl had died in her apartment. We did all we could to get her out. But the smoke killed us. So anytime I see a fire like this and I'm able to help, I jump on it,”Parrish said.
Crews battled flames and heavy smoke for about 90 minutes before the fire was under control.
MFRD said the woman was looked at and treated at the scene by emergency responders and then taken to hospital.
Fire officials are investigating the cause of the fire.
