Emirates honour for three teenagers who saved family
Young heroes rushed into flats blaze to save mother and children
Published: 06 August, 2010
by RÓISÍN GADELRAB
THREE heroic teenagers who ran into a burning tower block to save the lives of a mother and her two children have been honoured in front of a 60,000-strong crowd.
The young men were called out in front of a packed Emirates stadium at half-time during Arsenal’s win against Celtic on Sunday to be rewarded for their courageous actions.
Akram Mohamed, 17, Luis Marques, 18, and Mohamed Jama, now 20, gave no thought for their own safety when they dashed into Hind House on the Harvist Estate, in Holloway, one June afternoon after spotting smoke coming from a sixth-floor window.
Foremost on Mohamed’s mind was the fact that the flames were coming from the same floor his family lives on.
Luis said: “We had keys because we live in the block.
“We took the elevator up because at the time we knew it wasn’t a big fire. We started knocking really loud [on the door].”
The boys spoke to a woman at the first flat, telling her there was a fire. But she couldn’t find any flames in the kitchen, the living room where her baby was or the bedroom where her child was sleeping.
Luis said: “Next door was the kids’ room. No-one had been in there. Akram opened that door and saw there was a fire there. The smoke started building up straight away.
“I immediately ran to the living room because the mum couldn’t have reached the baby.
“She had grabbed the child in the bedroom and run out barefoot.
“She was screaming, panicking and tried to get back in to get the baby but I had him and handed him over.”
As Mohamed escorted the family down the smoke-filled stairwell, Akram and Luis carried on down the corridor, banging and kicking on doors to raise the alarm.
Luis said: “We opened the windows so the smoke could get out. We couldn’t really breathe.
“We crouched under the smoke like we were taught at school.
“Because we both have asthma we need to know what to do in these situations.”
Luis said he didn’t agree that the trio were heroes, just that they had done “a good deed”.
Fire officers later said the blaze may have been started by a discarded cigarette from a flat above, flying into the sixth-floor flat window.
The three have all been involved in Arsenal’s Positive Futures Programmes, which runs football courses for youngsters in the borough.
It was through this that the boys were singled out for recognition at Sunday’s match, where they were brought on to the pitch through the players dugout and presented with certificates.