A man hanging out the second-floor window of a burning Gwinnett County apartment building was rescued by firefighters Monday morning.
The fire broke out at 4:45 a.m. at The Estates at Crossroads apartments on North Berkeley Lake Road in Duluth. The second floor of a three-story, 18-unit building was in flames when firefighters arrived.
"He was hanging out of the window when we arrived," Gwinnett Fire Lt. Eric Eberly said. "We threw a ground ladder and helped rescue him from the building."
No one was injured in the fire, which seriously damaged six units. The Red Cross was helping relocate the residents of the damaged apartments.
Eberly credited Duluth police with a quick response.
"We arrived and found the Duluth Police Department aggressively evacuating the building," he said.
Resident Jay Jun said one of his roommates woke him up.
"I saw a big fire going on outside the window," he said. "It was really, really scary. The only thing I had in my mind was to escape."
He and his roommate ran out, but another roommate jumped from a second-floor window, Jun said.
"I don't know how he did that," Jun said.
Resident Yakisha Henneborn came to Atlanta after being displaced from her New Orleans home by Hurricane Katrina.
"I was thinking, ‘This can't be happening to me again,'" she said as she held her 2-year-old son, Timothy, outside the apartment building.
Henneborn, whose garden apartment sustained minor damage, chose to look at the bright side.
"If Katrina wouldn't have happened, I wouldn't have met my husband and I wouldn't have my son," she said. "Even though it was a sad moment, it came out better in the end. And you never know what this might bring, maybe something good."
The fire caused heavy smoke and heat damage throughout front units on the second and third floors, and moderate damage to the roof, Eberly said. Firefighters brought it under control by 6:25 a.m.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
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