Man pulled from motel fire fights for survival
Motel guests tried to fight an intense blaze at an inner city motel, unaware a man was inside.
A 44-year-old man remains in a critical condition in Christchurch Hospital after the fire ripped through a ground floor unit of Central City Motel Apartments, on Barbadoes St, about 6.45am on Wednesday.
Family were travelling from Australia to be with him.
A motel resident, who wished to remain anonymous, was among guests who tried to douse the flames using a hose and fire extinguisher.
He left the building when alarms went off.
‘‘We all got downstairs and we noticed that there was a bit of a fire in room 10. It was on the inside of the room . . . there was a fire right there at the window.’’
The man said the window broke and someone was able to get a fire hose into the room.
‘‘There was no pressure behind it . . . we tried as much as we could to actually do something and we got a fire extinguisher.’’
‘‘The fire department were . . . there within five minutes.’’
‘‘It was lucky it was all sealed concrete and it didn’t spread to any other rooms.’’
He said firefighters spent about five minutes fighting the fire. The Press understands firefighters believed the unit was empty until they gained access.
‘‘At that stage I asked the motel owner if there was someone in there. He said ‘I don’t think there is anyone in there’. So I was like ‘at least noone is in there’.’’
The man then watched in horror as a man was dragged from the unit.
He cut his motel stay short because of the fire. He filmed the fire and gave his footage to police.
Fire investigators referred the case to police.
Detective Senior Sergeant Jason Stewart said the 44-year-old man received life-threatening injuries from the fire.