Four National Police officers were affected by smoke inhalation after the fire in a residential building on El Greco street in Arrecife in the early hours of this Monday, requiring medical assistance. "They took quite a risk," stated the Jupol police union, who wanted to highlight the work of their colleagues.
According to the union, the four police officers who were working on the street that night, two professionals and two trainees, were the ones who evacuated practically all of the 19 residents, since neither the firefighters nor other emergency personnel had arrived at the scene yet.
"The call came in at 04:40 and they were the first to intervene. They saw fire coming out, which even sparked because it affected electrical panels and a pipe, and they began to try to get people out. The four colleagues entered and took almost the entire building out, except for one door that would not open, although firefighters later managed to enter through a window," they said from the union, from where they explained that inside there was a woman who had not heard about the fire and who was evacuated in this way by the Security and Emergency Consortium personnel but "once the fire was extinguished".
Regarding the officers, who had to be assisted for smoke inhalation after the fire, Jupol states that "to this day they are still giving them oxygen" and that at least one of them "has been diagnosed with bronchitis".
From Jupol they have also stated that two mothers and two girls, one newborn and another about four years old, were transferred to the Molina Orosa Hospital after the fire "surely to be under observation".