BABY THROWN FROM 10TH FLOOR:
DEATHTRAP TOWER: THE BLAZE HEROES AND SURVIVORS
AS panic spread through Grenfell Tower, a desperate mum threw her baby from a window and a hero on the ground caught the child.
Samira Lamrani watched in horror as the tot sailed through the air from the “ninth or 10th floor”.
She said: “I saw a mother was at a window and she was gesturing for someone to catch her baby.
“She wrapped the baby in some kind of blanket and threw it from about the ninth or 10th floor.
“A gentleman who was standing beside me ran forward and grabbed the baby. The baby landed in the gentleman’s arms and I believed it survived but I did not see the woman again.”
She said: “People were starting to appear at the windows, frantically banging and screaming.
“They were smacking them but were not able to break them.”
She added: “I could see people from all angles, screaming for help. The look on their face was death.”
Samira also saw a man who had “made some sort of homemade parachute and tried to lower himself out of the window”.
She added the “high-pitched voices” of terrified children inside the blazing tower will “remain with me for a long time”.
Witnesses said people on the ground caught children dropped from as high as the 15th floor.
Several babies were dropped to safety wrapped in carpets, rugs and towels. Horrified residents said they saw adults and a child on fire jump from the top floors to “certain death”. Others tried to flee by using bedsheets knotted together to lower themselves to safety.
Soraya Abdilla, 30, said she watched helplessly as trapped victims were “burnt alive” in their homes. Soraya added: “I saw one woman throw her child out the window and jump after her. There was nobody at the bottom.
“The people we saw trapped burnt alive in front of our eyes.
“Those thrown were babies, infant kids, teenagers.”
Another resident, named Zara, saw a woman throw her five-yearold son from a sixth-floor window.
She said: “I think he’s OK. I think he might have just had some broken bones and bruises. There was another woman screaming ‘my baby, my baby. I need to get out, I need to save my baby’.
“But we were just looking up. We couldn’t do anything.”
One resident, who did not want to be named, said: “I saw a kid on the 22nd floor on fire. He walked to the window and he jumped.”
Adam Ahmed, 17, told how he saw around “six people jump from the top”. He added: “There is no way they survived.”
Another witness described how bodies littered the ground.
Elvis Burke, 50, said: “People were screaming for help.
“I saw some jump from high up. I saw five or six bodies on the floor. They were dead.”
Mickey Paramasivan tucked his six-year-old stepdaughter Thea under his dressing gown and ran downstairs to escape the inferno.
He said: “When we were outside we looked up at the tower and it was like a horror movie.
“I could see people banging on their windows or flashing their lights, then some of the windows started blowing out. It was horrific.
“One woman got down from the 12th floor, left her flat with her six kids but there was only four when she got to the bottom.”
Aalya Moses said her fourth floor neighbour, whose fridge is believed to have sparked the fire, alerted her to the emergency at 1.45am.
Aalya added: “There was no alarm, no sprinkler, just my neighbour who told everyone on my floor and the surrounding floors.
“If he hadn’t told me I wouldn’t have known. Soon it was up to the 23rd floor. The first just went
wild.” Jacqui Haynes, who has lived on the estate for around 40 years, told how the blaze took hold with frightening speed.
She said: “There was a fire on the fourth floor and then I just watched that whole building go up.
“There was nothing that could be done. The building and those people were finished.
“That’s the hardest thing to watch and hear – people screaming, people throwing themselves out of windows. They must have been on the 15th, 16th floor and underneath the tower is concrete... That must have been some kind of desperation.
“People were screaming ‘help me, help me, please!’”
Saimir Lleshi, 40, said: “I saw someone try to make a rope with the sheets but I don’t think the sheets reached the bottom.”
Youngsters from a nearby mosque tried desperately to save loved ones inside the tower.
A local said: “The boys were saying ‘Our families are in there, they’re dying’.” The resident added: “Riot police were holding up shields to stop debris falling on the fire brigade.
“You could see through the building, all the windows were exploding... One girl, her aunt was ringing her saying ‘I’m burning alive’. How do you comfort someone?”
Joe Walsh, 58, said: “I saw a parent throw two kids out of the window. I don’t know where they landed because I was on the other side.
“I doubt anyone caught them, I hope they did. It would have been the fifth or sixth floor up.” Samia Badani, 41, who was in a flat overlooking the inferno, watched as a victim caught fire in her property.
She said: “She was banging on her window, screaming. I saw her just get totally engulfed in flames.”
Student Tiago Etienne, 17, witnessed petrified families throwing their children out of windows from around the 15th floor.
Tiago said: “I saw about three children between the ages of four and eight being thrown. The screaming was loud. It was terrible.”
Ann Waters, 57, said: “It was the screaming that was the worst. It was like something out of a nightmare.”
Reliving the horror, Michael Creazea, 31, said: “I saw people jumping out of windows.
“I saw people screaming and waving their T-shirts outside the windows for help – but there was fire above and below them.
“Knowing they wouldn’t get out and seeing them was hard to take. It was really sad. God bless their souls.”