Herald-Times
ELLETTSVILLE, Ind. — An Ellettsville mother dropped her toddler son from a second-story window and into the safe arms of bystanders below during a kitchen fire in an apartment late Tuesday morning.
The mother then jumped from the window, landing on the wooden deck and railing of her downstairs neighbors, Ellettsville Fire Department Deputy Chief Kevin Patton said.
Both mother and son were transported by ambulance to Indiana University Health Bloomington Hospital. The mother was listed in stable condition in the emergency room by 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, and the boy had been released.
Before noon, Ellettsville firefighters and police responded to a report of a mother and child being trapped inside a second-story apartment that was on fire near the corner of East Temperance and East Vine streets. They were already out of the smoke-filled apartment as police, firefighters and paramedics arrived.
The mother had dropped her toddler out of the window and into the arms of a restaurant hostess and a cook, who work next door at the Village Inn restaurant and motel.
Fire investigators determined the fire started at the stove in the kitchen near the front door of the second-floor apartment. “The fire basically blocked her only doorway,” Patton said.
The first-floor residents of the house, at 303 E. Temperance St., said they heard the mother screaming for help before they realized there was a fire in the efficiency apartment upstairs.
“I heard the sound of her hitting; she hit hard,” said Becca Incollingo, the downstairs neighbor.
Officials did not have the exact age of the boy who was dropped to safety. The woman’s two other children were not home at the time of the kitchen fire.
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