A TEENAGE girl has described how she tried to save a man who died after trying to escape a fire at a building in Limerick.
Brian Power Close (31) was fatally injured after he jumped from the fourth floor of a flats complex on Upper Cecil Street in the city centre.
Emergency services were alerted after a fire broke out, possibly in a laundry room on the building’s first floor, shortly before 9pm on Tuesday.
Mr Power Close suffered serious injuries after he became impaled on a railing outside after jumping from a window on the top floor.
He was taken to the Mid Western Regional Hospital where he was pronounced dead at about 10.30pm.
Rebecca McCarthy (14), who was visiting friends in the terraced building, described what happened.
“It was terrible, it was the worst experience I ever had in my whole life,” she said. “We were walking by and my cousin was standing at the door and he invited us in for a chat.”
Later, inside the building, they heard someone shouting that there was a fire.
“My sister went to open the door and a big puff of smoke came out so we slammed the door and we all got out the window from the second floor,” she added.
Rebecca’s friend, Belinda O’Sullivan (19), was saved by fire officers from a window ledge and was treated in hospital for smoke inhalation.
Rebecca described the scene as Mr Power Close tried to escape the building.
“He was trying to get out the window. Everyone was telling him to jump, but I started screaming up, ‘Don’t jump, don’t jump, wait for the fire brigade’,” she said.
“He jumped, but slipped and he fell on his back on to the railings. It was awful, I saw it all happening.
“I ran over. Everyone was screaming and covering their faces. I said, ‘Are you all right, are you all right? Talk to me’.
“He looked up at me and said: ‘Please love, will you help me’.
“I said ‘the fire brigade and the ambulance are on the way, just calm down and I will keep you safe’. I was just trying to keep him alive really.
“He was talking to me. He just said: ‘Thanks for coming over to me, thanks for helping me, you are an angel’.”
Originally from Lynwood Park in Limerick, Mr Power Close moved to Germany with his mother when he was younger but had returned to Limerick in recent years and had been living in the flat in the city.
His mother, who still lives in Germany, was in Limerick yesterday and was being comforted by family and friends.
Gardaí are investigating the cause of the fire, which they believe may have started in a laundry room on the first floor of the building.
“We are still trying to establish what caused the fire and at the moment we are looking at equipment in the laundry room,” explained Supt Frank O’Brien of Henry Street Garda station.
Three units of Limerick’s fire service and one unit from Shannon attended the scene of Tuesday night’s fire.
The Assistant State Pathologist Michael Curtis was due to carry out a postmortem on Mr Power Close at the Mid Western Regional Hospital yesterday evening.