First responder details efforts to save trapped students at Utumishi Girls
First responder details efforts to save trapped students at Utumishi Girls
First responders braved danger and uncertainty, pulling girls to safety amid thick smoke, intense heat, and locked doors at Utumishi Girls.
For Steven Muiruri, a resident of Gilgil, a town known for its quiet nights, May 27 was anything but ordinary.
The silence was suddenly broken by piercing screams from Utumishi Girls Academy, cries that signaled something was terribly wrong inside the school. In that moment, his first instinct was not to run away.
“We were the first responders, and what made us stay was remembering that those were the same girls we used to go with for games.”
Inside the Meline Waithera two-storey dormitory, he recounts how he and others tried desperately to break open the door leading to the upper floor.
Trapped inside, some girls reached for the small windows, clinging to them in a desperate attempt to save themselves.
“There were those who tried to jump, and we told them to jump. One got injured and we assisted her. There was another one who jumped and her clothes caught fire,” he noted.
The memories of that night, he says, are impossible to erase. He knew that every second the flames raged on meant another life slipping away.
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“Those who were holding each other in the corner, we were pulling them out but some refused to come out. Some passed through the beds, others through the hallway. One jumped and sustained a serious head injury. It was painful and very bad.”
For Muiruri, the design of the dormitory hampered rescue efforts, making it even more difficult to save the trapped girls.
“The door was locked, it opens from the inside. We had to break it down, but some people could not make it out. The windows were high. It was a two-storey building, and the upper floor had glass panes, so we could not reach them. The matron was supposed to be handling the dorm alone, where was she? When we arrived, she was not there,” he pointed out.
He says the incident serves as a stark reminder of the urgent need for stringent safety measures in schools.
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