D.C firefighters made two dramatic rescues on Sunday, both within hours of each other.
In one, a rookie firefighter rescued a woman inside a burning apartment, and in the other, a veteran firefighter caught a toddler dropped from the second floor of a burning building.
In the 17 years on the job, McKiney said none of the rescues he has made has come close to this one.
“You could see the front door was filled with black smoke, and as we were advancing with the attack line, a father was hanging out of the window with his child," Kenny McKiney, a firefighter, said.
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It was just before 10 p.m., and it was dark.
McKiney said the father of the child was holding him outside of the second floor window.
“Everything happened so fast I didn’t have time to get nervous it was more so I had a job that had to get done and I executed it to the best of my ability," he said.
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The toddler was not injured and calm, MicKiney said. He was not hospitalized.
D.C. Fire and EMS said firefighters also helped two adults and a child escape the fire that broke out in the 700 block of Alabama Ave. SE
Medics evaluated seven total residents. It's not yet clear what started the fire.
About eight hours earlier, a rookie firefighter, Kojo Saunders, pulled up to an apartment building on I Street in Northeast.
Smoke was showing as Saunders, with just six months on the job, ran inside.
The rookie firefighter went inside the apartment and heard a woman cough. He went to the sound, found the woman and carried her outside.
A spokesman for DC Fire and EMS said the woman was taken to a trauma center in critical condition.
When asked what it was like to make the rescue, Saunders said, “It was nice to be able to do my job."
The cause for each fire is now under investigation.
