A firefighter died Saturday after becoming trapped in a building that caught fire in Philadelphia and then collapsed earlier in the day, the fire department said.
The deceased firefighter was not immediately identified, but Deputy Fire Commissioner Craig Murphy said he was a 27-year veteran of the department.
"It's going to be a very tough few weeks ahead," Murphy said at a press conference this Saturday around 8:00 am.
The building had caught fire just before 2 am Saturday, Murphy said.
The fire had been put out, but
then at 3:24 am the building collapsed.
Four other firefighters and an inspector from the city's Department of Licensing and Inspections were also trapped at the time of the collapse.
Firefighters respond to a building fire that collapsed early Saturday, June 18, 2022, in Philadelphia. Philadelphia Fire Department via AP
One firefighter jumped from the second story of the rubble, while the others were pulled out at different times and taken to the hospital where they are in stable condition, according to Murphy.
The inspector was already discharged;
the firefighter who died was pronounced dead at the scene.
Several firefighters were in the vicinity while the rescue work was carried out, and
some were seen hugging each other or wiping tears from their eyes
, according to various media reports.
"You can't predict this," Murphy lamented at the news conference.
“This was just a catastrophic accident that (has) hurt our department a lot,” he added.
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Investigators were analyzing what caused the collapse.
Murphy said the building had been affected by the fire, but it was not clear what caused it to fall.
Mayor Jim Kenney said in a Twitter message that he was "mourning the members of the Philadelphia Fire Department and
the entire state that lost one of our own in the line of duty today."
Patricia Sermarini assured The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper that she ran to the scene when she saw the alert about the collapse because her son-in-law, who is a firefighter, was on the morning shift.
The woman claimed that he had been one of the firefighters who came to the scene, but that he had managed to get out of the building just before it collapsed.
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Moments later he saw firefighters pull a body out of the rubble, Sermarini said.
“It's so terrible,” he said, “this is very hard for them.
They just want to go home to their families.”