Harrowing body camera footage from police in Texas emerged Saturday showing the dramatic moments heroic officers, without wearing breathing equipment, evacuate people from smoke-filled rooms in a motel on fire.
Watch:
Two policemen were first to arrive — minutes before better-equipped fire fighters with respirators — but didn’t hesitate to charge through the structure fire at Studio 6 motel Thursday in White Settlement, Texas.
In the video, the cops shout “get out, get out, get out,” sometimes coughing from the extensive smoke, as they sprint through the hallways. Some of the people they alerted were sleeping.
Some 150 guests and extended stay residents were evacuated from the motel, which is located about ten miles west of downtown Fort Worth, Fox4 in Dallas reported.
In the video, one of the officers finds a person lying unconscious on the third floor near a burning room. The officers were able to pull that person to safety, the body cam reveals.
White Settlement Police Chief Christopher Cook said officers saved lives that day.
“They immediately without any thought of any personal risk at all, they grabbed the subject and got them to safety because the fire was spreading so quickly and they dragged that person to safety immediately,” the chief told the Fox affiliate.
He added, “I do believe those immediate actions were taken, probably saved that person’s life and certainly got some other folks out of harm’s way that had no idea.”
Firefighters soon arrived and brought the fire, which included two rooms engulfed in flames, under control.
The two officers were sent to a local hospital to be checked for smoke inhalation, police said, but then were released and told to go home and get some well-deserved rest.
The cause of the fire has not been determined.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
