A Georgia firefighter is being hailed as a hero after he caught a child who was thrown “like a football” from a burning building in Decatur, Georgia, a city northeast of Atlanta.
The fire occurred on January 3 at the Avondale Forest Apartments in DeKalb County. The DeKalb County Fire Rescue Department uploaded the video of the rescue to Facebook.com on Sunday (watch video below).
The video shows Cpt. Scott Stroup reaching out and catching a limp girl who was thrown from the 2nd floor of the roaring inferno by her father.
Stroup is seen running with the unconscious child when he suddenly slipped on a piece of equipment and fell to the ground.
Fox 5 Atlanta news described Stroup as “collapsing to his knees” after he slipped and fell.
“We were catching babies like a football, literally,” Capt. Eric Jackson told reporters. “There were adults that were on the balcony that were dropping their babies right into our arms. We had a couple firefighters catching babies, so it was just really incredible.”
The blaze displaced about 80 people from their apartments. The DeKalb County Fire Rescue Department say they rescued 12 people, including eight children.
The Avondale Forest Apartments has been the site of numerous fires in the past.
