A fire in an apartment building in Zásada in the Jablonec region ended tragically. One of its residents attempted suicide there and set fire to his apartment beforehand. Fortunately, no one else was hurt.
Firefighters learned of the fire shortly before 10 p.m., when paramedics and police had rushed to the scene. Residents of the house told them that the house was on fire and that one of the tenants was running down the hallway with a bleeding wound.
“The first help was given to him by a resident of the house who, together with other people, tried to keep him alive. Unfortunately, his condition was so critical that he succumbed to his injuries on the spot, despite all the care of the ambulance service, ” said Ivana Baláková, a spokesperson for the Liberec Region Police.
The firefighters located the fire within half an hour, using special Cobra equipment because the flames had reached the mezzanine floor. The Cobra can cut through inaccessible spaces with a slender water beam and use the water mist to kill the fire.
“We had to take one of the residents of the house from the opposite apartment out with a mask on because the corridors were heavily smoked,” said Jakub Sucharda, spokesman for the Liberec Region firefighters.
Firefighters are investigating the causes of the fire, but the fatal injuries were apparently self-inflicted, according to criminal investigators. “Given that this man tended self-harm in the past, we are inclined to the hypothesis that he harmed himself and that another person was not to blame for his injuries,” Baláková said, adding that a forensic autopsy has been ordered to confirm this hypothesis.