EXCLUSIVE: Heroic Officers Recount Life-Saving Rescue In Frankford Blaze
PHILADELPHIA (CBS)--Two Philadelphia police officers who caught two children thrown from a burning apartment building in Frankford shared their story exclusively with Eyewitness News reporter Trang Do.
Cries of people in distress led Officer Kevin Ward to an intense apartment fire at the corner of Frankford Avenue and Sellers Street, just before 4 a.m Tuesday.
Ward made the first call for help.
"They were screaming and crying," he said. "Some were bloody already, I guess from the glass breaking inside trying to come through the window."
Ward looked up to see a woman dangling a little girl from a second story window. He had no time to think about what to do next.
"It was just arms out and when she dropped down from her two arms, you just catch her," he said.
Once her child was safe, the mother jumped from the window and sprained Officer Ward's knee.
RELATED: Police: Baby Thrown From 3rd Floor In Philly 2-Alarm Fire
"She lost her footing trying to get out the window and when she did so, she fell kind of hard and that's when she fell into my leg and my leg went bad," he said.
The heart-stopping rescue was just the beginning. The apartment building was engulfed in flames and full of families with no way out. Hearing Officer Ward's radio call, Officer Thomas Wilmer and his partner were next on scene.
"Glass was bursting from the flames, dark smoke is out there and there was already an gentlemen on the platform right below the third floor window," Wilmer said. "And there was a family trapped in that window."
Officers Ward, Wilmer, Travaline, Tohn and Patterson pooled their strength to move a dumpster blocking the way out. Wilmer then had to channel his college football skills when he saw another young child who needed to be saved. This time, it was from an even greater height.
"This is a pretty good drop, about 25 feet," he said. "He took the child to edge and I was just waiting for him to drop the child and he dropped the child. I caught him."
For these two friends, officers and dads, it was just another day on the job keeping people safe.
"It was just a credit to the police department, the fire department, the medics, everybody working as a team," Wilmer said. "Because we're all out there doing the same thing. Trying to help people."
Of the 21 people displaced from the fire, first responders rescued 12. Nine adults and four children suffered mostly minor injuries. The Red Cross is helping them with food and shelter.
Even before Officer Ward's heroic actions in this fire, he and his partner were named "Officers of the Month" for November in the 15th police district.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
