PHILADELPHIA (WSVN) — A man is speaking about his daring and heroic actions to make sure his mother was all right.
According to WPVI, a man named Jermaine climbed a 19-story building in the midst of an apartment fire to ensure that his bed-ridden mother was OK.
Jermaine said he was alerted to the fire by his sister who said that their mother couldn’t make it out of the building. He went to the scene and tried to go in through the front door, but he said said it was blocked by police.
“They said, ‘The elevators are not working.’ I said, ‘No problem. I’ll take the steps. I just want to make sure my mother– my mother is sick, she’s bed-ridden. So I need to get up there,'” Jermaine told WPVI. “They were like, ‘We can’t let you in.’ I took it upon myself because that’s my mother. There’s no limits. That’s my mother.”
Despite having fallen and cracked his hip earlier in the day, Jermaine said adrenaline took over, and he decided to start scaling the building to reach his mother’s apartment on the 15th floor. He said he was familiar with the layout of the building since he lived there in the past.
Helicopter video showed Jermaine climbing the building. Luckily, when he made it to his mother’s apartment, she assured him she was OK and that the fire had been contained.
Jermaine also added that his mother didn’t yell at him for climbing so high to reach her, but she was shocked. “She’s not surprised by the things that I do for her,” he said. “She knows I’ll go over and beyond for her.”
Jermaine then made the climb back down the building. He said he expected to be arrested once he made it to the ground, but officers were understanding and let him go.
According to WPVI, Jermaine’s mother made it safely out the building. A total of four civilians and three firefighters were treated for smoke inhalation.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
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