Teenager rescues fire victims
An 11-year-old Class Six pupil became an instant saviour and hero when he managed to save over 30 people, including his family, from being burnt to ashes in a raging fire that destroyed the first floor of their house at Dichemso in Kumasi.
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Master Louis Emmanuel Kwame Agyeman managed to go through billows of smoke to open the locked main door of the house for his parents and the entire tenants to escape.
A tenant, whose name was only given as Owusua, who is always accused of praying and disturbing everybody in the house at midnight, was the one who spotted the initial fire in a room whose occupant had travelled.
She raised an alarm for all the occupants to wake up, only for them to be trapped inside the house till Little Agyeman managed to go through the smoke to open the main door for the others to escape unhurt.
But for that prayerful lady, people would have been caught in their sleep and burnt to ashes.There was no casualty.
Ordeal
Narrating the incident to the Daily Graphic, Mr Richard Kankam of the Ghana Library Board said they were asleep around 12 midnight when they heard Owusua raising an alarm about the fire.
He said initially they thought she was in her usual prayer mood, but her persistence compelled them to get up.
He explained that they got up only to realise that the room very close to the main door was engulfed in fire which was spreading to the other 10 rooms, a situation that made it difficult for outsiders to enter to offer help.
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He noted that they stood in awe as they watched the fire spread to their rooms because they could neither jump from the first floor to the ground floor nor pass through the fire and smoke to open the main gate to escape.
“It was just miraculous that just as we the fathers and mothers were praying and shouting for help, Louis rushed through the smoke and fire, opened the door and called all of us to follow. Although we lost everything, we thank God we have our lives,” Mr Kankam said.
Fire Service
He explained that because it took some time for the Ghana National Fire Service to arrive at the scene, they were unable to prevent the fire from spreading to adjoining houses and the first floor.