Children Thrown from Windows During Paris Fire
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James Joyner | Friday, April 15, 2005 |
Witnesses to the deadly Paris hotel fire that killed at least twenty people say that some were throwing children out the windows to save them from the flames.
Eyewitness: Children thrown from windows (CNN)
Night watchmen and prostitutes, the first witnesses to a deadly Paris hotel fire early Friday, begged for calm as hysterical parents threw their children from the windows of the burning building. “I saw bodies, windows in flames, people crying out for help,” Alfred Millot, head of the fire service at the nearby upmarket Galeries Lafayette department store, told AFP. “It’s hard in that kind of situation to tell people to calm down. They jumped. People on the first floor threw their children out the windows,” Millot added.
The fire gutted the six-story one-star Paris-Opera hotel, located near the historic Garnier opera house.
Horrific.
Update (0948): Thankfully, though, No Maltese were injured in Paris hotel fire.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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It's a horrible and devastating event, but I too cannot speak with enough relief that no Maltese were injured. Hooray for Malta!
It is truly awful. But at least it wasn't my favorite hotel, the Therese, in the First. It's an 18th century building. I don't know much about fire safety and emergency exits in France, but they don't appear to be as well marked as here.
Sounds like a flashback to the Triangle Shirt Waist Fire...awful.
"People on the first floor threw their children out the windows," Millot added.
As bad as the truth is, the fact the children were only being thrown from first-floor windows comes as a relief after the headline.
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