‘I think my sister couldn’t get out’, says fire survivor
“I think my sister couldn’t get out. She lived upstairs. It was very quick, they shouted “fire!” and the fire was two rooms on the side of mine. [Tinha] much smoke. It was above and below and to the side. I ran out,” she says.
Nursing technician Joneisa Garcia was passing in front of the inn when the fire happened. She says that one of the survivors was very injured and needed help. She had jumped from the third floor of the building to escape.
“There was a lot of fire. I was going home, when we arrived at the corner, there was a boy who was very injured. He said he threw himself from the third floor, we helped him by taking him to Santa Casa, they said it wasn’t there, we took him to the HPS (Hospital de Emergency Room) and there they provided care to him, he and his wife”, he says.
The inn is located on Avenida Farrapos, between Garibaldi and Barros Cassal streets, towards the Center-neighborhood. The fire would have started in the early morning. He was controlled around 5am. On the first floor of the building, two victims were found. In the second, five. In the third, another three.
Eleven people were rescued. Eight of them needed medical attention and were taken by firefighters and the Mobile Emergency Care Service (Samu) to hospitals. Others were treated at Christ the Redeemer Hospital.
According to the Municipal Health Department (SMS), the health status of two of them is serious and they are intubated. Another, also serious, had 20% of her body burned. Finally, there is one with a fractured leg.
The cause of the fire is still unknown. The Fire Department estimates that the fire spread quickly because the inn’s rooms were very close together. This would have even prevented people who were there from leaving.
Firefighters disclosed that the space operated irregularly and did not have a permit or fire protection plan.
Fire kills nine people in Porto Alegre guesthouse
Tags: sister couldnt survivor fire killed people Porto Alegre Rio Grande Sul
