Man plunges to death in desperate bid to escape fire

KUALA LUMPUR: A married couple jumped from the balcony on the second floor of their burning house onto the awning of their son's house next door to escape the fire in an incident in Taman Sri Gombak here early yesterday.

However, Ahmad Zabidi Abd Rashid missed his steps and and fell to his death, while his wife, Aznin Ishak, 61, managed to slide down with the help of her daughter-in-law.

Aznin said she and her husband realised the house was on fire when they woke up to a smokefilled room about 2 am, and then woke up her son and his wife in the other room, before she and Ahmad Zabidi jumped across their balcony onto the awning of their other son's house.

“I managed to get down with the help of my daughter-in-law, but my husband slipped and fell,” she said, adding that her other son and daughter-in-law, who were staying with her, and their children, were helped out of the burning house through the back door by neighbours.

Meanwhile, Nor Mazmin Che 'Ad, 38, who helped Aznin to climb down the awning, said the adjacent house, said the fire was raging when she got out of the house , with sounds of shattering glasses.

“I got out from the house and saw my mother-in-law on the house awning before helping her to get off it,” she said.

She said her father-in-law died from the fall and his body was sent to Selayang Hospital for a post-mortem.