Durban - A desperate mother dropped her two young daughters from their second floor Durban flat on Wednesday before leaping out of her bedroom window to escape a raging fire.
CCTV footage which captured the dramatic incident shows 2-year-old Kenaya Lokoka, wearing only a nappy, dangling in midair for five seconds before a window opens in a flat below.
The toddler falls and does a 360 degree turn in midair, before landing safely in a pair of hands that appear from the window.
Her 4-year-old sister, Kerene, was next. But she hits the windowpane below, spins forward and flies over a brick ledge - into the arms of bystanders on the road below, who had stretched a blanket between them as a makeshift safety net.
Moments later the children’s mother, Lilian Isoni, 33 - naked because she had been in the shower - jumps feet first from the window. She seems to be holding on to a curtain before letting go.
Isoni turns in midair and hits her hip on the brick ledge before somersaulting into the crowd below. Seemingly unhurt, she bravely stands up and bystanders wrap her in the blanket.
Five seconds later her husband, Alain Lokoka, 41, appears and carefully climbs down on to the window ledges and window frames below to safety on the pavement.
The blaze started in a Waterfront Lodge flat in Mahatma Gandhi (Point) Road at about 7am and while the drama played out, cars, minibus taxis and buses drove past, their drivers and occupants oblivious to the drama happening around them.
Lokoka said he was asleep when he became aware of heat around him. He woke up to find his bed on fire.
His wife was in the shower and their daughters were close by in the room.
“We panicked because the house was full of smoke and it was getting very hot. The flames were high. My wife screamed for help through the window,” he said.
“I tried to stop the fire but by then my wife had climbed out of the window with the children,” Lokoka said, grimacing in pain from the burns he suffered.
“I realised I had to follow them or die.”
PT Alarms and Ambulance Services spokesman, David Badenhorst, said when he arrived with paramedic Siviwe Mkhize, the flat was still ablaze.
“I checked if anyone was in the flat before pulling the flaming beds to one side so the fire did not spread.”
“Alain was treated for burns to his fingers, arm and leg. His wife had burn wounds on her thighs and slight bruises on her body. The children were assessed but had no injuries. They were taken to Addington Hospital,” he said.
Family friend and neighbour, Dady Bula, said he heard people screaming and when he peered out of his window, he saw Isoni holding the toddler out of the window.
“I was shocked. I thought they were having a domestic argument. I rushed over to their flat and banged on the door but there was no response. I banged harder and when the door opened, smoke was coming out,” he said.
“I used a fire hose from the passage and extinguished the fire. I went into the flat to check if anyone was inside. I was not aware they had jumped.”
The 40-second footage captured by a security camera on a neighbouring building showed Isoni at her bedroom window and a group of bystanders below looking up at her.
She holds Kenaya by the leg out of the window as smoke billows out above her head.
It is suspected that a clothes iron could have caused the fire. Durban fire department station commander, Shaneil Ellen, said the fire had been confined to the bedroom.
“The contents of the flats were extensively damaged. Residents used a hose reel to put out the fire,” he said.
“The cause of the fire could be an electrical fault.”
Daily News