Fireman in tearful apology to grieving Grenfell families
A FIREMAN who told residents to stay inside Grenfell Tower apologised to their families yesterday.
Desmond Murphy appeared to fight back tears as he told of the decision to leave eight trapped on the 14th floor.
Firefighters were running out of air – without equipment to rescue them safely.
He believed an attempt to guide them down 14 storeys through acrid smoke would have meant leading them to their deaths, but said one man begged him: ‘Please don’t leave us.’
Four of the eight left on the 14th floor died in the inferno in London, including Zainab Deen, her two-year-old son Jeremiah and Syrian refugee Mohammad Alhajali.
An emotional Mr Murphy said: ‘I’m very sorry we couldn’t get your loved ones out.’
Four firefighters were ordered to try to reach the 14th floor after resident Denis Murphy, 56, told 999 operators he was trapped in his flat and could not escape. They reached him shortly after 2am – about an hour after the fire started – finding him coughing in his smoke-logged home.
Smoke had not yet reached other flats on the floor so he and four neighbours were told to take refuge at a neighbour’s, keep the door closed and wait for rescue.
Mr Murphy, a fireman for 20 years, said he would have tried to rescue the six adults and two children if he believed they could have survived the attempt.
He said: ‘I wasn’t prepared to take anybody into that stairwell with the smoke conditions.
‘If I had taken anyone down, it would have led them to a very early death.’
Firefighters told how they had to negotiate the stairwell by touch, unable to see through the smoke. Their radios did not work. They were unable to call for back-up.
Mr Murphy and colleague Charles Cornelius almost ran out of air in their breathing sets on their way back down the tower block’s only stairwell, the public inquiry into last year’s tragedy heard.
Once they reached commanders, they told them about the eight people trapped.
More crews were sent up at 2.26am and led two men, a woman and a young girl to safety. But four – Denis Murphy, Mr Alhajali, 23, Miss Deen, 32, and Jeremiah – were not rescued and died.
One of the rescued, Mr Alhajali’s brother Omar, 25, questioned if firefighters had searched properly. But Peter Herrera, the last firefighter to leave the 14th-floor flat, said he believed it was empty.
Seventy-two died in the blaze on June 14 last year.