A fire that erupted on Monday morning at a Yerushalayim seminary dormitory on Rechov Dovid Yellin caused injuries to almost 50 people, including three in critical condition, according to the Magen David Adom emergency medical service.
Firefighting teams worked to put out the fire raging in the upper floors of the dormitory and rescued scores of female students who were trapped inside the building, Hebrew media reported.
The volunteer-based emergency response service United Hatzalah reported that an additional two individuals were listed in moderate condition and the rest suffered light injuries. All were evacuated to Shaare Tzedek Medical Center and Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.
According to Ynet News, one of those critically injured was the seminary’s security guard, who ran into the building to rescue the students before first responders arrived. The rescue efforts were reportedly delayed because the doors to the seminary were chained shut.
A 17-year-old boarding school student told Israel’s Channel 12, “A friend of mine woke me up because she smelled smoke. She woke us all up. We are five in the room, and you can’t get out of our window. We opened the door, [but] smoke came in, so we closed it. I wanted to call firefighters but couldn’t even remember the number. We opened the window, and people told us to get out. We couldn’t see anything, there was smoke everywhere. We couldn’t tell if it was just smoke or [smoke with] fire but we all held hands and just got out.”
Why don’t you mention the name of the seminary? It was Ohr Chaya Mushka, the seminary for the daughters of the Rebbuh MH”M of Lubavitch.
Big Kiddush Lubavitch.
That’s so scary. Hope they all have a refuah shelemah bimherah.
Seminary or high school? Same word (סמינר) in Hebrew.
Locking a bunch of adults into a building with no fire escapes is sickening. I hope people finally wake up to the realities of sem.
Even well-intended reports contain inaccuracies.
Clearly, the security guard managed to get in and get the girls out, so the chain (if there indeed was one) wasn’t a problem.
If there is a chain, then that’s what the security guard is there for (he can open it).
The more common danger than fire for teenage girls is being away from home in a dorm that is not secured properly. People scoff at this because they don’t hear the sad stories (or don’t care).
Girls need to be protected from males entering their dorm at night, plus the handful of adventurous girls who don’t understand the risks of sneaking out at night need to be protected from their potentially & irreparably bad decisions.
Both scenarios are far more likely to happen than a fire. And as a fire safety precaution (and other precautions), the security guard was there and apparently very alert and heroic.
(Fire escapes — which are not at all a common feature in Yerushalayim — would not provide protection from from the danger of unwanted entry or the girls sneaking out.)
And this is all even whether it’s true that chained door hampered rescue efforts. That remains to be proven.
If you read the comments clearly on certain websites, you will see that 99% of the people who truly knew what went on, they are all saying the same thing-pro lubavitch or not pro lubavitch, they all agree that the windows were barred very well and a combination padlock was put at the entrance and only two Madrichos knew the combination and they were both not near that exit when the girls were screaming to exit the premises, an outsider brought a chainsaw and they cut the lock with a chainsaw
and finally the girls were able to leave and start breathing again, thanks to the outside volunteers. I am sorry that you did not know the true and honest facts before you posted.
I’m sorry I did not know either.
When it is so common in all news articles for necessary information to either missing or false information included, I learned to take a wait-and-see attitude. (Though clearly not enough in my above comment, as I received the impression that the chain either didn’t exist or wasn’t a big deal, and there are clearly more details which were not known or described at the time of posting.)
And frum media can sometimes be the most self-accusatory without checking the facts first.
I will say that barred windows in residential buildings are incredibly common in Yerushalayim, both to keep people (particularly children) from falling out and to prevent intruders from coming in.
News articles present the fact of barred windows as a negative and dangerous thing, when it’s a very common safety feature throughout the city.
But certainly, I didn’t mean to imply a lack of concern for the remote yet real danger of fire. Provisions for fire safety should have been made without compromising the girls’ daily security.
The Lubavitch websites all agree that the girls had to wait for a volunteer to come with a chainsaw to cut the lock.
I’m sorry I did not know either and appreciate the information.
When it is so common in all news articles for necessary information to either missing or false information included, I learned to take a wait-and-see attitude and not hop on the bandwagon of bashing the frum people/institution involved.
And frum media can sometimes be the most self-accusatory without checking the facts first, so just because it appears in a frum venue doesn’t mean it’s accurate.
I will say that barred windows in residential buildings are incredibly common in Yerushalayim, both to keep people (particularly children) from falling out and to prevent intruders from coming in.
(News articles present the fact of barred windows as a negative and dangerous thing, when it’s a very common safety feature throughout the city.)
But I didn’t mean to imply a lack of concern for the remote yet real danger of fire. Provisions for fire safety should certainly have been made without compromising the girls’ daily security.