An off-duty Philadelphia firefighter rushed to a burning Olney apartment today and helped to rescue three children, city fire officials said.
Firefighter Donald L. Bradley, other neighbors and firefighters pulled three children, ages 1 to 8, from a residence on West Chew Avenue.
The children were hospitalized in critical condition, according to fire officials.
Bradley, 49, said he was taking his daughter to work when he saw smoke, went to the blaze and called the 911 emergency number for help.
"I crawled up the hallway. I got to the room where most of the fire was," Bradley said in a telephone interview.
But the smoke and heat were too intense for someone not wearing protective clothing or an air mask. Bradley said he backed out. Then in the backyard, he saw the children's mother, who had jumped out a window.
"She said that the children were in there," Bradley said, but the window was too high for him to reach without a ladder. Frantically, he tried to get back in through the basement, then he heard the sirens.
Running to the curb, Bradley guided an arriving firefighter to the rear yard, then leaned over and offered his back to the firefighter so he could reach the window. Within moments, the firefighter climbed inside and handed a child out to Bradley, who rushed the youngster to paramedics at the curb.
"We got oxygen on the first child," he said. A minute later, a neighbor ran to the truck with a second child handed out by the firefighter. "A couple minutes later someone came with a third child," he said.
Fire officials said the cause of the one-alarm blaze, reported at 9:31 a.m. and under control in 19 minutes, was careless smoking. The building had three smoke detectors, but only one may have worked, fire officials said.
