A group of good Samaritans sprang into action Wednesday afternoon when a mother and her two children became trapped in a Pawtucket apartment building.
Carmen Velazquez, who happened to be working in the apartment building next door, said she knew something was wrong when she heard the fire alarm go off.
“After we heard the alarm, my stepfather came out and said there was smoke coming out of the building,” Velazquez recalled. (Velazquez’s family also lives in the apartment next door to where the fire broke out.)
When Velazquez and her colleague went outside to investigate, they saw a woman and her two children in one of the windows on the second floor of the building.
“We saw that she was trying to jump out of the window,” Velazquez said. “So me and [my coworker] and my uncle decided to help her … and make sure the kids were secure.”