14 DAY TRIAL // One of the victims stuck in a Manhattan building during the fire decided to live tweet his horrible experience of being trapped in the 26th floor of a burning apartment building in New York city. British scientist Mickey Atwal was trapped in the flat's balcony with his wife and 2-year-old child until firemen came to the rescue.
Mickey related the whole experience with tweets and photos of the fire growing in the flat beneath him. Many residents were blocked in the 42-story high building when the fire started, with two people found unconscious in the stairwell and taken to the hospital. Unfortunately, one passed away and the other is still in critical condition, notes Daily Mail.
The father of the two-year-old was constantly updating his Twitter account from the 26th floor of his apartment building, telling people about how he was unable to escape because the elevators weren't working and the stairwells were engulfed in smoke that made it impossible to breathe.
Mickey and his family found refuge on the balcony, the only place they could actually escape the clouds of smoke. “Still stuck. Too much smoke on hallways. Elevators not working. Standing in the balcony with wife and 2yr old,” the man wrote on his Twitter page before adding that the firemen were getting closer to saving them.
“Firemen here in our hallway. Telling us to stay put. Looks like fire started a few floors below. Family safe and in good spirits,” Mickey tweeted before being able to escape from the building through the cleared stairwells and thanking everyone for their support.
Mickey Atwal, renown scientist and assistant professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on New York's Long Island, is an English researcher married to a German-born model and fashion designer, and they have a two-year-old son, Alexus. Fortunately, they managed to exit to the flat's balcony and not suffer from the thick clouds of smoke that took over the building.