A woman and her baby are both safe after a dramatic rescue from the second floor of a burning home.
KALAMAZOO, Mich. — A mother and her infant are safe after being rescued from a burning home in Kalamazoo, Mich., last week, thanks to a quick-thinking public safety officer who caught the baby after the mother dropped the child from a second-floor window into the officer’s arms.
Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety (KDPS) crews responded to a working structure fire around 4:16 p.m. May 15 at a two-story residence. The home is divided into three separate living units, according to KDPS.
Dispatchers were alerted that a porch was on fire and that a woman and her infant were trapped inside the second-floor unit.
When first responders arrived, they found a fully involved porch fire on the right side of the building. While assessing the structure, crews spotted the woman in a second-floor window on the left side of the home, holding her baby as smoke poured out of the structure.
In body camera footage from an officer identified as Public Safety Officer Arnett, you can see Arnett circle the building searching for the woman and infant. Once he finds them, he can be heard encouraging the woman to kick the screen out of the window and drop the infant into his arms. Video then shows Arnett catch the child and shift focus to getting the mother out as well. KDPS said the baby was handed off to a nearby equipment operator. A ground ladder was then raised to the window, allowing the mother to climb down to safety.
Both the mother and the infant were taken to a local hospital for precautionary evaluation. Neither were injured.
Occupants of the two lower-level units self-evacuated and were not hurt.
Fighting the fire presented additional challenges because s the interior staircase had been damaged by the flames, forcing crews to use ground ladders to reach the second-floor porch, KDPS said.
Most of the fire was concentrated on the exterior right side of the home, but flames had spread into the attic. Firefighters removed portions of the roof edge and exterior siding to reach hidden flames, and additional crews removed sections of the ceiling inside to locate and extinguish remaining hot spots.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.