LMPD :: Louisville Metro Police Department
IMAGE

Three people rescued from apartment fire, LMPD officer injured

IMAGE
PHOTO

At least three people were rescued from an apartment fire Wednesday morning that also sent a Louisville police officer and a 1-month-old baby to the hospital.

The fire was reported at 10:42 a.m. at the Churchill Park Apartments at 7218 Hill Park Way.

A resident, JoAnn Simpson, said she heard a loud boom just before the fire broke out in another first-floor apartment.

Simpson said she and her husband, Lawrence, were trapped inside their apartment when they were rescued by another resident, Tyler Dixon, and his friend, Eric Durbin.

"I know it was a miracle," Simpson said. "God bless them."

Simpson said she and her husband "lost everything we had."

"What are we going to do?" she asked.

Durbin said he and Dixon had trouble opening the window to the Simpsons' apartment, so he took off his shirt, wrapped it around his fist and broke the window. "I don't think I was a hero," he said. "I just did what I guess anyone else would do."

Durbin also hopped a fence to retrieve a ladder to rescue another resident from her second-floor apartment.

"I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the right place to help," he said.

A Louisville police officer was treated for smoke inhalation and taken to the hospital, said Pat Walsh, the chief of the McMahan fire department, which was the lead agency fighting the fire. The department was assisted by firefighters from St. Matthews, Jeffersontown and Lyndon.

Dixon said his baby was taken to the hospital as a precaution but appeared to be OK.

Walsh said the fire appeared to have started in a first-floor apartment.