The great escape

7:10am Saturday 5th July 2008

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A WOMAN had to be rescued from a burning house minutes after her partner jumped from the bedroom window in desperation.

Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service was called to the blaze in Sling Lane, Malvern, just after midnight on Friday and found two women screaming from a bedroom window. Black smoke was bellowing out of the roof and window and flames were leaping from the front door.

Before firefighters could get a ladder to the first floor window one of the women had jumped 12 feet (3.6m) and was sitting naked on the patio below.

“I have never seen somebody jump out of a window before,” said crew manager Keith Massam.

“I could not get over the idea that they knew we were there and she still jumped. The desperation, you cannot image it.”

Firefighters then tried to rescue the second woman who was still in the bedroom and suffering from smoke inhalation.

Watch manager Saul Bolton said: “Keith climbed up to her but she was 62 years old and was struggling. She was falling into the room and Keith was trying to hold her in the fresh air so she could breathe. The breathing apparatus team fought through the flames and they assisted to lift her out by getting her onto the window sill and then onto the ladder.

“Keith took her weight and supported her as she came down the ladder. We were worried she was going to fall off as it looked like she was going to pass out at one point.”

Police would not say if they were treating the blaze as suspicious but issued descriptions of two men and a woman who were seen in the area at the time who may have information.

The women’s neighbour Georgina Lindsay woke up in the night when another neighbour banged on the door. Her partner Julian Carroll ran up the stairs shouting: “Get dressed the neighbours are on fire.”

She praised the fire service saying: “The speed that they got the fire under control was amazing, it could have been a lot worse, particularly if the car (parked outside the burning house) had caught fire or exploded.”

Miss Lindsay, aged 27, said the two women were a “really nice couple.”

“I do not know them that well, just saying hello, and we keep an eye on their property when they’re away.”

The two women were taken to Worcestershire Royal Hospital suffering from smoke inhalation, and the woman who jumped broke her ankle. Fire investigators were still at the scene yesterday afternoon and the cause of the fire is unknown.

Police would like to hear from the three people who walked past the house shortly before the fire.

The first male is described as white, with short, curly, brown hair. He was wearing a brown T-shirt and blue jeans. The second male, also white, had short, dark hair and wore a long-sleeved, white and dark hooped top and dark jeans. The white female had brown, curly hair and wore a hooded top with a light-coloured hood and jeans.

The three people – and anyone else who may have helpful information – can call Det Con Hazlewood on 08457 444888, quoting 8S/040708. Information can also be given anony- mously to crimestoppers-uk.org/" target="_blank">Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.