A man in Philadelphia climbed a 19-story building to save his bedridden mother as her building was on fire.
On July 19, Jermaine received a call from his sister that his mother’s apartment complex was on fire. He didn’t hesitate for a moment and rushed to Westpark Apartments on 4445 Holden Street in Philadelphia to see whether his mom was safe.
When he arrived at the scene, there were about 50 firefighters and 100 policemen, but the main entrance was barred due to safety measures.
“They said the elevators are not working. I said, ‘No problem. I’ll take the steps. I just want to make sure my mother—my mother is sick; she’s bed-ridden. So I need to get up there,” Jermaine said. “They were like ‘we can’t let you in.’ I took it upon myself because that’s my mother. There’s no limits. That’s my mother.”
So he decided to climb up to rescue his mother, even though he was getting around on crutches as he had cracked hip earlier in the day when he fell on some stairs, according to 6ABC News.
“I climbed up with some barbed-wire cutters to cut the gate, so at least the firefighters will be able to get upstairs,”
“When I grabbed a gate, at the top of the gate, there was a ledge. Then I could step on top of the ledge and reach up to the other gate, and keep climbing my way up,” Jermaine explained.
He scaled all 15 floors until he reached his mother’s balcony. “All for my mom’s safety—period. I wasn’t worried about mine at all. She can’t get out of the bed or walk around so if there’s a fire she needs help out,” he said.
Once inside, his mom assured him that she was safe and that the fire was contained. The firefighters had told her to stay inside until the building was cleared.
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His mom did not yell at him. “She was more shocked. She’s not surprised by the things that I do for her. She knows I’ll go over and beyond for her,” he said.
“I think if anyone else was in that circumstances, they would do the same thing, because don’t nobody want to just sit outside and lose their mother,” Jermaine said modestly.
Jermaine, undaunted, did not want to wait for the building to be reopened. He just climbed along the façade and back down to the ground—where police were waiting.
News agencies got word of his feat and helicopters were swirling around his head. With swaying spotlights and national television cameras aimed at him, he must have felt he had woken from sleep to find himself in a kind of Towering Inferno movie.
When he reached the ground, he was briefly apprehended by policemen who were awaiting him, but the police officer in charge soon set him free.
“He told me if I didn’t leave, I was going straight to jail because that was his job, but, he actually did cut me a break. He understood the circumstances, he knew – when your adrenaline is pumping, and your mom is up there, you thinking she’s dying – you’d do anything you can,” Jermaine said.
Eventually, everybody made it out of the building safely. Four residents and three firefighters were treated for smoke inhalation.
