Crowd Catches Two Children Who Jumped From A Burning Building

No one was hurt.

By Emily Francos — Written on Jul 29, 2020

Photo: YouTube

Crowd Catches Two Children Who Jumped From A Burning Building

On July 22, 2020, a crowd gathered to help rescue two brothers, aged 3 and 10, as they jumped from the third floor of the burning building in France.

According to BFM, a CNN affiliate, the boys were alone at the apartment because their father had left for work and their mother had gone to go to the grocery store, said the state prosecutor Éric Vaillant.

"The mother had been absent from around 11 am when she went grocery shopping and the dad had left for work around 11:30," Vaillant explained. "At first glance, the mum should have returned before the departure of the husband but was a bit late. The children were not allowed to be left alone."

The fire started in their living room, but the cause has reportedly not yet been determined.

Athoumani Walid was in the crowd, and told BFM "that he heard screams from outside his window when he saw the two children trapped."

In the video, you can watch as the older brother lowers the younger brother down and then drops him down to the crowd, and they catch him.

Then he sits on the ledge, as smoke billows out of the apartment complex, then he drops down and is also caught by the crowd.

Miraculously, neither of the boys was hurt.

Walid also said, "The eldest one took a lot of courage and a lot of confidence. He put his little brother first. We took him in and we said to the other one, 'Come on, jump, it's your turn, jump,'" and "Then he climbed up through the window, he let go, and then we got him again. None of them fell on the floor. No one's hurt."

Grenoble's mayor, Éric Piolle called the crowd's rescue "very heroic."

But, Walid finished by saying, "We saved their lives but they made the right decision to go for it. We had no choice, we had no way to go to them. They were the ones who came to us. They were the brave ones, they were the heroes."

After this amazing rescue, the mayor said, "I would like to congratulate the inhabitants of Villeneuve who made a heroic rescue of two children trapped in their burning apartment today," and "Hand in hand, they allowed the two little ones to get out unharmed from this drama."

Since then, there has been an investigation started to look at the possibility of possible negligence charges against their parents because they were alone at the time of the fire.

The fire started in their living room, is currently being investigated to decide what the origins of the fire came from.