Harrowing 55-minute 999 call of Grenfell girl as firemen looked for her
‘The lift filled with smoke’
A GIRL of 12 trapped inside Grenfell Tower made a desperate 55- minute 999 call while firemen battled to find her, it has been revealed.
Firefighters searched a 20th floor flat for Jessica Urbano Ramirez, not realising she had climbed three storeys in a last- ditch attempt to escape the fire.
Harrowing details of the doomed search for the victim, who was just two weeks from her 13th birthday, were revealed this week at the public inquiry into the inferno, which killed 72.
The inquiry heard how she spoke to a 999 operator for almost an hour, saying she was trapped on the 23rd floor of the tower block with ten other people.
Meanwhile firemen searching for her in her family’s 20th floor flat found it was empty, and believed she might have made it out.
Details of the search were revealed in a 120-page report by London Fire Brigade which recorded minute- byminute decisions in the battle to save the tower block and its residents from the worst fire on British soil since the Second World War.
Jessica was alone in her family’s flat when the fire broke out on June 14 last year and called her mother, who was working a night shift, to beg for help. Her father was at a friend’s flat on a lower floor and could not get back to his stranded daughter.
The family’s flat was directly above the flat where the fire began, meaning it was in the path of the flames as they spread up through the cladding, leaping 19 floors in just 12 minutes.
Jessica’s older sister Melanie raced to the tower in West London and pleaded with firefighters to find her. Melanie stopped fireman David Badillo outside the building at 1.26am – half an hour after the fire began – and handed him the keys to her parents’ flat, telling him Jessica was trapped.
By this point the flames had reached the top of the building. Mr Badillo went inside and got into the lift, but it stopped on the 15th floor and filled with choking black smoke. He was not wearing breathing equipment and was forced to run back downstairs, where he told commanders about conditions on the 15th floor.
He ordered another five fire engines, bringing the total to 25, before he grabbed a colleague and breathing apparatus and ran back inside. Meanwhile Jessica called 999 at 1.30am, and call logs showed operator Sarah Russell talked to her for 55 minutes. But in the chaos the information did not reach Mr Badillo and his colleague. Not realising Jessica was now on the 23rd floor, they climbed to her family’s flat on the 20th floor and searched it twice, but realised it was empty.
They were forced to abandon the search as they were both running low on air.
The inquiry has heard that Jessica and several other residents attempted to shelter in a top floor flat belonging to Raymond ‘Moses’ Bernard. Tragically, Jessica and six others, including mother Berkti Haftom and her 12-yearold son Biruk, all died in his flat before they could be saved.
Relatives of Mr Bernard said the 63-year- old had offered his bed to Jessica, the Haftoms and opera worker Debbie Lamprell while he sat on the floor. In total more than 700 firefighters and 140 fire engines were sent to Grenfell in the largest operation of its kind since the Blitz. The public inquiry continues.
The Grenfell inquiry sacked its ‘expert architect’ yesterday – after it emerged he was not registered as an architect.
John Priestley said he was registered, and was commissioned to analyse potential safety failings in the £9million cladding refurbishment at the tower block. But he was sacked after the inquiry learned he had not been registered for the past eight years.
It is illegal for anyone to say they are an architect unless they are registered with the Architects Registration Board. It is investigating. Mr Priestley was unavailable for comment.