Man Rescues 4-Year-Old from Burning Apartment, Then Needs Rescue Himself

On October 13, at around 10:45 p.m., Yassine was talking with his friends Amine and Bouba in Frédéric-Bombail Square in Plaisance-du-Touch. Cries from a nearby residential building alerted them. A fire had broken out in an apartment. The three men immediately went into the building to warn residents and help them evacuate, reports La Dépêche du Midi.

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As smoke spread through the common areas, Yassine kept knocking on the door of an apartment from which no one had emerged. A woman eventually opened it and told him that her four-year-old child was still asleep inside.

The 36-year-old entered the apartment, guided by the mother, who held him by the back. The smoke had become so thick that he could no longer see anything. “I found him by touching his hair,” he says. He was able to hand the child to his mother, who took him to safety.

Yassine then tried to put out the fire, which had been started by a pan. According to his account, he used a blanket to smother the flames and a wet towel to protect himself from the smoke. But when he tried to leave the apartment, he had lost his bearings. One of his friends eventually managed to get him out.

The rescue took about seven minutes. Outside, Yassine began vomiting. The firefighters treated him, and in the following days he also had to go to hospital for lung problems caused, according to his account, by smoke inhalation.

Nicknamed “Yaya,” the resident of Plaisance-du-Touch for 22 years works in delivery and founded the local PP Futsal club. He had previously helped two people after a road accident in 2016. Now recovered, he still regularly sees the child’s mother, who never stops thanking him.