Bystanders catch brothers who jump to safety from burning apartment block
A boy and his toddler brother escaped from a burning building by jumping 33 feet (10m) from a window before being caught by members of the public.
Footage shows the two brothers - aged 10 and three - leap from at least three stories high as their apartment billowed with black smoke and flames. As onlookers screamed, the older brother hung out of the apartment window and then let himself fall into the arms of people gathered below.
French media said the two brothers were unharmed by the fall but might have suffered smoke inhalation.
They are reported to have been hospitalised along with 17 of the building's other residents.
No deaths were reported in the fire.
Four of the people who caught the boys were also hospitalised to check if any bones were fractured by the impact of the jumps.
Athoumani Walid, 25, a student in Grenoble, broke one of his wrists as he helped catch the children. He heard screams and went out to investigate after seeing the fire from his nearby apartment.
With four of five other people, he immediately tried to help.
“We didn’t know what to do, but we walked up” to the apartment that was in flames, Mr Walid said.
“We wanted to break the door but it wasn’t possible.”
So they walked back downstairs and shouted out for the boys to jump in their arms, he said. Although he was initially afraid for the boys, “when they jumped, fear disappeared, what mattered was to catch” them, he added.
Mr Walid hopes the rescue will change people perceptions of the Villeneuve neighbourhood of Grenoble where the events happened, and where there is a large immigrant population. “We are told it’s a ‘sensitive’ neighborhood,” Mr Walid said, “but yesterday we showed we are here for each other, and we save each other.” Eric Piolle, the Grenoble mayor, congratulated the Villeneuve residents on the rescue, which he said underscored the city's “tradition of solidarity and mutual help.” In May 2018, a young Malian migrant rescued a child dangling from a balcony and was offered French citizenship. Video of the rescue showed 22-year-old Mamoudou Gassama climbing up four floors of the apartment building in just seconds to rescue the child, to cheers from onlookers.
By the time Parisian emergency services arrived at the building, he had already pulled the child to safety.