My Fox Detroit
SHELBY TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A small child was thrown from a balcony into the hands of a police officer to escape an apartment fire.
Police released the dash cam video of the heroic rescue, which occurred at the Crystal Lake Apartments at 23 Mile and Dequindre Tuesday night.
The footage is a little grainy, but you see the 4-year-old child dropped from the second floor balcony during the blaze.
Shelby Township officer Paul Sorbo made the catch.
“The child was being thrown down to the policeman,” said witness Jeremy Kneebone. “So we grabbed the ladder, threw it up there. Got a lady down. A policeman carried her down on his back.”
The flames broke out around six this evening on the first floor — and quickly spread to the second and third.
“People were jumping off the balconies, it was very chaotic,” said Shelby Township Fire Chief Jim Swinkowski. “We tried to rescue the people, then try to stop the fire from spreading into the other 10 units on the other side of the building.”
That child wasn’t the only one who had to be rescued from their balcony.
Witnesses say they grabbed ladders and helped them down as more first responders arrived at the scene.
Reprinted with permission from My Fox Detroit.