Agony of Grenfell hero who ran out of oxygen

A FIREFIGHTER who tried to rescue a man from the 15th floor of Grenfell Tower was told by a manager: “I can’t take this” when he tried to say people were still awaiting help, the blaze inquiry heard yesterday.

Ricky Nuttall was tasked with going to flat 122, the home of victim Steve Power, but had to abandon the rescue when his oxygen supply ran low.

The Battersea firefighter said he knew it was important to let colleagues know they must return to the 15th floor and “flew down” the stairwell to the base of the tower. He spoke to a manager keeping a record of the rescue efforts on the wall on the ground floor, but was told he could not deal with it.

Mr Power, who had entered the burning tower in North Kensington, west London, on June 14 last year, to wake up his daughter, died with his dogs around him after being advised to stay in his flat. He was one of 72 people to perish in the disaster. But Mr Nuttall told the inquiry conditions inside the tower were so dire he did not believe anyone would have survived for the time it would have taken to send another crew.

In a written statement, he said: “Information was being passed back from the control to people outside, who in turn passed the information back into the poor guy who was keeping record of the updates on the wall.

“I don’t know, but I would think it was impossible to have collected that much information accurately. He was one person doing all of this and there was lots going on.

“He just didn’t have the time to call people up and tell them about the 15th floor, because there was over 50 or so calls coming in to collate and pass on to people.”

The firefighter, who went into the tower three times, told the inquiry that when he tried for a second time, he was told, “I can’t take this” by a crew manager outside the block who was collecting slips of paper with details of those trapped.