As heavy smoke poured under the door into her third-floor apartment, Ashley Brown had only one thought: Saving her two babies.
"I knew we couldn't go out into the hallway," said Brown, 23, whose family was among those rescued from the blaze that damaged an apartment building in DeKalb County Wednesday night. "I knew the baby's lungs couldn't take it."
Out on her balcony, Brown considered lowering two-month-old James down to safety using a rope. But it just seemed too dangerous, Brown said. "I thought for sure he'd fall."
Down below her, a neighbor, Lawrence Fort, stretched his arms wide and held out a ‘big fluffy black coat" and yelled to Brown to drop the baby. But she hesitated. "Some people were saying drop him," she said, "And some people were saying don't."
"He looked at me and I looked at him," said Brown. "I said ‘please catch my baby. He said, I promise I will,' and he caught him."
Brown then used the rope to lower 3-year-old daughter Jayda down to safety. She was helping her mother-in-law, Denise Watson, to safety when fire and rescue officials showed up. "I'm guessing the whole ordeal lasted 10 or 15 minutes, but it felt like an eternity," said Brown. She said tossing her baby to a stranger was the hardest thing she's had to do in her life.
"After that I felt like getting renter's insurance and sitting down to read the Bible," she said.
Fire damaged the three-story building in the 500 block of 3 Oaks Bend, near Hambrick Road, in Stone Mountain.
The fire started in the kitchen of Lawrence Fort's ground-floor apartment around 6:45 p.m., fire rescue officials said.
Fort told Channel 2 Action News that he alerted his neighbors, then got in position to rescue the baby.
"I promised her I'd catch it," he said. "So I had to catch the baby."
Four people, including the children, were transported to a hospital in stable condition, police said. Brown said both of her children are doing fine after the ordeal.
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