Danny van Lierop became the hero of an apartment complex in Eindhoven on Sunday. A flat on the fifth floor was ablaze late on Saturday night and a resident was trapped on the balcony. Danny saved the man and made sure that all other residents could get out of the building on Urkhovenseweg on time.
Just after midnight, Danny and his girlfriend Cynthia smelled smoke in their second-floor apartment. On the balcony, they saw plumes of smoke coming down from above. She asked her boyfriend to call 112 and immediately went outside to see if anyone was still there. “I called upstairs and heard the frightened voice of a man yelling, ‘Yes, I’m upstairs and there’s nowhere to go.'”
Brave move
When her boyfriend heard that, he didn’t hesitate for a moment and jumped into action. He ran to the fifth floor and rang the neighbour’s doorbell. “I had to call a few times before she opened. She first wondered what I was doing there.” Through her balcony, he went to help the man. “You have to be really agile to get over it and it wasn’t that easy,” explains Danny. Anyone who wants to get past the bulkhead needs to hang halfway over the railing.
Saved a life
But he managed to help the local resident over the balcony. One look down from the fifth floor is enough to see that things could have ended very badly.
Then Danny went through the rest of the building, waking everyone up and getting them out of their homes. “Fortunately, everyone was outside on time. The fire brigade also arrived very quickly,” Cynthia adds. The fire could still be smelled in the complex the next day. The hall on the fifth floor is completely blackened and the water damage is clearly visible. The apartment residents, who also had a lot of contact before the fire, continued talking on the pavement.
Heroism
The residents compliment Danny on his heroism. The modest Eindhoven resident is especially shy of all the attention. His girlfriend knows better: “I am very proud of him. He actually just saved a life.”
Source: Omroep Brabant
Translated by: Shanthi Ramani
