LOUISVILLE, Ky. --
Firefighters enacted a dramatic rescue as they save a woman trapped in her burning apartment building.
The fire broke out about 11:30 a.m. Thursday on Glenawyn Circle in Jeffersontown.
When crews arrived, everyone in the apartment building had already escaped, except for one woman in her second-floor apartment.
"It was unbelievable, man," said witness Kevin Grayson. "I mean, you see that type of stuff on TV, but when you see it live like that, it's indescribable."
Grayson watched it all unfold in front of him. His neighbor was trapped inside her home, then rescued, just when it seemed time was running out.
"When I first got up I thought I was in hell," said Ashley Centers, who was trapped inside her apartment when the fire broke out.
"Ii didn't think I was going to make it out because I couldn't see nothing, and then they were all screaming and freaking, so I didn't think they was going to get me out for a minute," she said.
When firefighters arrived at the scene, they tried two approaches to save Centers. Some raced inside; others tried to rescue her from the outside.
"They barely got her down in time and right when they got her down, that whole doorway there just engulfed in flames like a back draft, I guess they call it, and it was just terrible," said Grayson.
"I got out and I got down and then I looked back up and the window had just caught on fire," Centers said. "I'm glad I made it out when I did."
Centers escaped unharmed, but a woman and her four children who were on the first floor were taken to the hospital and treated for smoke inhalation.
Three firefighters who went inside the building to try and rescue Centers were taken in for observation.
"They did what they were supposed to do today," said Jeffersontown Fire Department Maj. James Sebastian. "They risked their lives do save somebody else's."
The reality of what happened still hasn't hit Centers, but for those who helplessly watched from below, it quickly sank in.
"They saved her life," Grayson said. "J-town fire department, bravest men in the world."
Fire officials believe the fire was the result of children playing with a lighter.
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