Related WMAQ Chicago Video and Slides
CHICAGO (AP) - Fire broke out high in a downtown office building Monday evening, belching smoke and flames from windows as firefighters helped workers to safety. Eighteen people were injured.
Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said two firefighters were hospitalized in serious condition. Most of the injured were treated for smoke inhalation, he said.
A spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner's office said it had not been notified of any deaths.
Langford said he had no reports of anyone trapped in the 45-story LaSalle Bank building on the Loop but ``we are still in the process of fighting the fire.''
The fire on the 29th floor was reported about 6:30 p.m., said police Officer JoAnn Taylor. People who escaped said firefighters escorted them downstairs through the thick smoke.
Jim Rubens, who works for a law firm in the building, said he held hands with other victims as firefighters escorted them down a smoky stairwell.
``It was horribly thick smoke and the halls were completely dark,'' said Rubens, who was sweating and covered in soot.
Tom Smith, a lawyer, said a firefighter took him to safety in a freight elevator after smoke in a stairway turned him back.
``It's kind of scary. When I started seeing smoke in the hall, that started getting disconcerting to say the least,'' Smith said.
Sarah Nadelhoffer, a lawyer who worked on the 39th floor, said she was working late when her office started to fill up with smoke.
``I was thinking it can't be over this way,'' she said. ``I also thought I have no control. I'm going to pray the fire department gets me out.''
The fire comes 14 months after a 35-story building in downtown owned by Cook County caught fire, killing six people. A state-funded investigation of the October 2003 blaze concluded in September that the deaths could have been prevented if there had been sprinklers and unlocked stairwells, and if firefighters had searched for victims sooner and kept out smoke and heat.
The state report also cited inadequate evacuation training of building staff and occupants, and poor communication among fire and police emergency dispatchers as well as the city's emergency dispatchers and fire commanders at the scene.
