Police trainee tells the story
Fire in Frohnleiten: “Went in without hesitation”
On Tuesday, a police trainee became a lifesaver when the historic house of an 89-year-old couple in Frohnleiten (Styria) was on fire. Marcel Schaffer rushed to the upper floor without hesitation, where the pensioner was still in bed. "I knew she wouldn't get out alive otherwise," says the 21-year-old.
On Tuesday morning, an elderly couple were surprised by the fire while they were asleep. It was around 7.30 a.m. when the historic house on Frohnleiten's main square was suddenly engulfed in flames. But the two 89-year-olds had a stroke of luck: a police trainee turned out to be a "guardian angel" - without him, they might not have survived.
"Smoke from the windows"
"I was on my way to the police station, walked past the main square and saw smoke coming out of the windows," says 21-year-old Marcel Schaffer. At that point, a concerned neighbor had already come to the 16th century house and alerted the fire department.
But the courageous police student - himself involved in the fire department and Red Cross - didn't want to wait any longer for the emergency services. "I knocked, rang the bell and shouted, but I didn't know if anyone would hear me. I just hoped that someone would open the door," he says.
Couple were woken from their sleep
Suddenly, the door actually opened and an elderly gentleman came to meet him. Schaffer didn't know the residents - the elderly gentleman seemed very surprised by the unexpected visitor. "He wanted to run back upstairs to get his slippers," says Schaffer.
But the police trainee held him back and stormed up to the second floor himself. "I saw the kitchen on the right-hand side on fire. The situation was borderline, it was pretty smoky." But he fought his way to the bedroom, where the 89-year-old's wife was still in bed.
Defective electric stove had started the fire
She didn't want to leave her belongings behind either. "She really wanted to get into the kitchen to put out the fire herself. I grabbed her and went down the stairs with her," says the 21-year-old. When they arrived outside, Schaffer's heart dropped.
Had he ever experienced such an extreme situation before? "No, never to this extent. But I went in without hesitation because I knew she wouldn't get out alive otherwise," he says. Fortunately, the fire departments (Frohnleiten, Röthelstein, MM Karton and Sappi) had also arrived in the meantime. A faulty electric stove turned out to be the cause of the fire, which was extinguished within an hour. And Schaffer walked to the police station, where he went on duty.
This article has been automatically translated,
read the original article here.
Kommentare
Liebe Leserin, lieber Leser,
die Kommentarfunktion steht Ihnen ab 6 Uhr wieder wie gewohnt zur Verfügung.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
das krone.at-Team
User-Beiträge geben nicht notwendigerweise die Meinung des Betreibers/der Redaktion bzw. von Krone Multimedia (KMM) wieder. In diesem Sinne distanziert sich die Redaktion/der Betreiber von den Inhalten in diesem Diskussionsforum. KMM behält sich insbesondere vor, gegen geltendes Recht verstoßende, den guten Sitten oder der Netiquette widersprechende bzw. dem Ansehen von KMM zuwiderlaufende Beiträge zu löschen, diesbezüglichen Schadenersatz gegenüber dem betreffenden User geltend zu machen, die Nutzer-Daten zu Zwecken der Rechtsverfolgung zu verwenden und strafrechtlich relevante Beiträge zur Anzeige zu bringen (siehe auch AGB). Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.