Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department has been dispatched due to fire reports received from the residents at East Street and Hanna Avenue at 3:39 a.m. on April 11.
Based on the body cam video released by the IMPD, authorities rescued a mother trapped on the second floor, along with her two toddlers, from the billowing apartment fire. As shown in the video, an officer was quick to wake people left in the burning apartment. He can be heard saying, "I need you to start knocking on the doors and getting everybody out of there."
"Hey wake people out. Get them out," he added to make sure all people had left the building safely.
According to the IMPD, they received a call from a mother who has stuck along with her 2-year-old and 3-year-old children. The officer started to look for the trapped family, calling out "Were you at Ma'am?"
After several calls, the officer located the trapped woman and children. He informed her about the growing fire at the doorway. He said, "We have fire coming to the front okay." Then the woman answered him in panic, "Please man hurry, I can't breathe. I got my kids here."
The officer called for backup to help him with the kids. Other officers came to rescue and asked the woman to pass her children from the second-floor window. "You want to try and pass them down to me [really] quick?" The officers assured the woman of the safety of her children. "It's okay, it's okay, we got him," said one officer.
The crucial rescue that had been caught on cam was a success. The children went safe into the arms of the rescuers.
Right after the children, they urged the mother to jump next to escape the raging fire. "You want it next? Can you come out?" said one officer. Without hesitation, the woman jumped from the window as the officers waited and assisted her on the ground.
When the woman started to bawl in tears, an officer encouraged her by saying "You did good! You did good! You guys are so brave. One day you're gonna get to tell a story about how you jumped out a two-story window." One of the officers likened the kids to superheroes as they bravely faced the hard situation. He said, "You and your mom out here jumping out the window...You look like spiderman!"
The mother was heard responding, "I'm going to put out the mattress if I had to." The family was brought to Hanna Avenue where Indianapolis Emergency Medical Services were located to check them. Meanwhile, other officers continued to search if there were still people trapped in the apartment.
The Indianapolis Fire Department confirmed that a 70-year-old man in the first-floor apartment knocked over a chair which caused a candle to set a fire in his blanket, WTHR reported. He was transported to a local hospital after he sustained slight injuries in an attempt to stop the fire. The incident spread out to the apartment above the attic which displaced 20 people.
