Rescued boy said family ‘all dead’

A little boy who was being rescued from Grenfell Tower told a fire officer the rest of his family were “all dead”, an inquiry has heard.

Glynn Williams, a watch manager from Fulham, described scenes of escalating horror on 14 June last year.

In a written account to the Grenfell Tower inquiry, the officer of 18 years’ service said he struggled to keep track of who had been rescued.

The sheer number of calls soon overwhelmed him, as crews had no training about safely rescuing someone through “a toxic environment 20-plus floors high”.

Residents first appeared to be self-evacuating, but it became grimly apparent many had been carried down, suffering from smoke inhalation or burns.

His harrowing account, published yesterday said: “At times I would ask the casualties themselves as they walked passed, but communication was difficult as they were either too traumatised to speak or unable to understand due to the language barrier. There was a woman carrying a little boy. As the woman walked passed me crying, I asked them where the rest of their family were, the little boy said: ‘All dead’.”