{"id":147691,"date":"2018-06-28T13:20:55","date_gmt":"2018-06-28T13:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/grenfell-inquiry-firefighter-dangled-from-window\/"},"modified":"2018-06-28T13:20:55","modified_gmt":"2018-06-28T13:20:55","slug":"grenfell-inquiry-firefighter-dangled-from-window","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/grenfell-inquiry-firefighter-dangled-from-window\/","title":{"rendered":"Grenfell inquiry: Firefighter &#8216;dangled from window&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Charles Batterbee\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/FCE8\/production\/_102244746_mediaitem102244745.jpg\"\/><figcaption>Image caption                                      Charles Batterbee says it &quot;rained fire&quot; that night                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">One of the first firefighters to enter Grenfell Tower has told how he clung to his colleague as he dangled out of a window trying to put out rising flames.<\/p>\n<p>Charles Batterbee and Daniel Brown had extinguished the source of the fire in flat 16&#039;s kitchen only to notice fire on the outside of the high-rise.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Batterbee said he held Mr Brown&#039;s legs as he lent out of the burnt window frame to direct his hose upwards.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#039;m holding on to him for dear life,&quot; he told the Grenfell public inquiry.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I&#039;m digging my hips into the [kitchen] counter so we don&#039;t both go together,&quot; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, he said burning debris was falling past the fourth floor window of the flat they were in.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;I could see an amount of debris and noise... when I say violent, it just rained fire.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;At that time I was thinking it is jumping multiple floors.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It didn&#039;t slow, it got worse.&quot;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Grenfell Inquiry: What five reports reveal<\/li>\n<li>What happened at Grenfell Tower<\/li>\n<li>Visual guide to the fire<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>He also told the hearing that the heat in the kitchen was something he had never experienced before in training or operationally.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Batterbee, who joined the London Fire Brigade in 2010, earlier broke down in tears when thermal imaging footage of him going into flat 16 was first shown.<\/p>\n<p>The chairman ordered that they take a break to let Mr Batterbee compose himself.<\/p>\n<figure>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/720x405\/p067zvzb.jpg\"\/>Media playback is unsupported on your device<figcaption>Media captionGrenfell Tower inquiry: What questions will be answered?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In a written statement, Mr Batterbee said the night of 14 June last year was &quot;hell&quot; and there were &quot;no words to describe how powerless I felt&quot; when he was on the phone to a trapped resident.<\/p>\n<p>He said the fire had been &quot;life-changing and potentially career-changing in a way I can never really describe&quot;.<\/p>\n<p> &quot;I don&#039;t really think that there are any words to really capture this horrific event - this was the worst thing that I have ever experienced and witnessed.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>His crewmate, Daniel Brown, is due to give evidence later.<\/p>\n<p>The inquiry into the tower block fire in west London, which caused 72 deaths, is currently examining what happened when the blaze broke out on 14 June 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image caption Charles Batterbee says it &quot;rained fire&quot; that night One of the first firefighters to enter Grenfell Tower has told how he clung to his colleague as he dangled<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":147692,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}