There were many accounts of heroic actions during Friday’s fire at a high-rise apartment building in West Los Angeles, including firefighters who ran unflinchingly into the burning building, and tenants who overcame fear to help each other in a time of crisis.
“This is the most terrified I’ve ever been,” resident Pamela Day told KTLA. “I’ve never been in a life-threatening fire.”
Day was one of three people, including an elderly man and a young girl, who were evacuated to the roof of the building when the stairwells became impassable with smoke and soot.
“When I first encountered the man and the girl, it was so terrifying because you could not go down and you could not go up. The smoke had then filled all of the hallways. You just couldn’t escape.”
Overwhelmed by the heat and smoke, Day said she retreated back to her apartment on the 23rd floor.
When Day returned to the stairwell with a neighbor to find the girl and the older man, they were unconscious.
They dragged the pair into a hallway and while her neighbor performed CPR, Day went for help.
“I started screaming to get the firefighters attention,” Day said.
She even threw things off her balcony in an effort to get someone to come up.
When fire crews arrived, they carried the child and man to the roof and began treating them, Day said.
The two were then rushed to an ambulance, aerial video showed.
Chris Wolfe contributed to this report.
