Fire swept through a home for the elderly near Johannesburg Monday killing 18 people, but dozens were rescued through windows and dragged from the flames on mattresses, paramedics said. The fire erupted late Sunday and gutted the Pieter Wessels home for the elderly in Nigel, on the south-eastern outskirts of the South African city.
Seventeen people burned to death, while a woman died of a heart attack after being rescued, private emergency services provider Netcare 911 spokesman Chris Botha told AFP. Charlotte Maxeke Hospital said one man had been airlifted for treatment and was in critical condition with burns on 50 percent of his body. Two others were seriously injured, Botha added.
Rescue workers and nurses carried residents out of the building, pulled them through windows and dragged them out on mattresses as flames jumped one metre (three feet) above the roof, said Louis Gouws, medical institution director for Meals on Wheels, which operates the facility. "Burglar bars were cut off and we released the patients through the windows. We ran into the building but there was so much smoke you could not see a thing," he said.
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