A quick-thinking workman helped rescue halfdozen people from a Saturday morning fire that displaced 12 families from a Silver Spring apartment complex, Montgomery County officials said.
The Red Cross is helping the families, who lived in the White Oak Gardens apartments on Lockwood Drive, a county fire spokesman said. The cause of the fire remains under investigation, though it is believed to have started in a ground-floor kitchen.
A cable contractor working nearby saw the flames and heard screams coming from the building. He then used his ladder to rescue six people from the building before the more than 80 firefighters from Montgomery and Prince George’s counties arrived around 10:30 a.m. to fight the flames, officials said.
A woman was taken to the hospital after she jumped from a third-floor balcony, and one firefighter was hospitalized for minor injuries. At least 14 people were in the building when the fire started, the spokesman said.
