BELLEVUE, Pa. --
A 22-year-old culinary arts student is dead after flames ripped through an apartment building in Bellevue early Friday morning.
Several residents who were able to escape the flames at the Bellevue Manor Apartments told WTAE they ran back inside to warn others of the danger.
Officials said flames broke out around 2:30 a.m. on Jefferson Avenue at the Bellevue Manor Apartments.
Channel 4 Action News' Ari Hait was at the apartment complex. He said that when officers arrived, several residents were trapped on the upper floors of the building calling for help. Fire crews had to use ladders to get the people out of the building.
Hait also reported that several residents were able to escape on their own, but ran back inside, pounding on doors to try to get people out of the burning building.
"Just knowing that there was still a lot of people still in there, you don't really think. You just react. I mean if you had a second chance to think about it, would you do it again? It's hard to say but we just ran back in," said Lance Harrell, one of the building's residents.
"It got to the point where we were barely able to make it out ourselves. In maybe 10 or 15 seconds it went from you could see to it was just pitch black," said another resident, Bernie Digregorio.
Police said several people were treated for smoke inhalation at the scene and a firefighter was treated for dizziness.
Officials have not released the name of the person who died, but they did say the man was from New Jersey.
Investigators said it appears the fire started in a storage area in the basement of the building, but the cause of the fire remains under investigation.
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