Mother throws children from unit during fire

With a building fire raging outside the front door to Mila Askakova's fourth-floor unit, the Russian mother's options of escape for her and her two children were limited.

So she turned to the window.

With no ladder fire escape to climb down, Ms Askakova launched her children – Vanya, four, and Natalya, 13 – out the window and onto a makeshift landing of bed sheets held taut by her neighbours.

Amateur footage captured the children's harrowing four-storey fall – and safe landing.

Ms Askakova did not follow her children out the window, however, because she was feared the bed sheets would not hold her weight.

Instead, she waited inside the unit for firefighters to arrive, eventually overcome by smoke and losing consciousness.

Firefighters managed to break down her door just in time and rescue the woman.

Once she regained consciousness Ms Askakova was reunited with her children, who were waiting patiently for the mother down below.

The fire is believed to have started in a ground floor unit. What caused the blaze remains unknown.

Source: Daily Mail

Author: Natasha Lee, Approving editor: Erin Tennant