UP ON THE ROOF

SIX PEOPLE RESCUED BY FIREFIGHTERS

During the afternoon fire at the Antlers in Lorain Monday afternoon one family tried to escape through the building from the second floor but the smoke was too thick, so they turned to the roof in hopes of going down the fire escape.

Damian and Mary Elliott with their 2 year old son Cairo in hand exited out onto the roof with others only to find that the ladder had been removed. They took refuge on the roof for about 30 minutes until Lorain Firefighters hoisted a ladder against the building to rescue them.

Firefighters went up the ladder and checked on the condition of the stranded residents then began one by one bringing them down the ladder. Cairo was the first one down being handed off from Lorain Firefighter Dave Gedling to the arms of Lorain Firefighter Michael Smith who safely carried him down the ladder.
Mary Elliott and her family have lived at the Antlers for 2 years and when they heard the fire alarm sounding Monday afternoon at first they were sure if it was a false alarm or the real thing. “We heard the alarm going off and at first I just thought it was a false alarm but then I started smelling smoke and heard more and more fire engines coming so I said come on we gotta move.”

William Montgomery lives on the second floor of the Antlers and questions the safety of the fire escape ladder being removed. “When the construction workers were here over the summer removing bricks from the stack and replacing bricks along the side of the building they just took the ladder away. One day I asked why they did that and I was told that too many people, who nobody knew, were using it to get up and into the building so their solution was to just remove the ladder permanently. I just wonder what will happen if we have a bigger fire one day, what will happen to all those people on the upper floors, it just seems to be very dangerous to me.”