Laptop on bed triggers fire, man uses bathroom window to reach safety

The man had to exit his seventh storey flat at River Heights in Raj Nagar Extension through a small window in the bathroom, jump on to a beam nearby where remain there till the fire department arrived at the spot and pulled him to safety.

When 26-year-old Rahul Singh went to sleep the previous night, he had left his laptop on the bed as usual. That innocuous action almost cost him his life — he woke up on Tuesday morning to find the bed on fire.

A man points to the beam on to which Rahul Singh had jumped to save himself from the fire on Tuesday morning. (Sakib Ali/ht photo)

The man had to exit his seventh storey flat at River Heights in Raj Nagar Extension through a small window in the bathroom, jump on to a beam nearby where remain there till the fire department arrived at the spot and pulled him to safety.

Singh, who works as an engineer with a multinational networking and telecommunications company in Noida, said he arrived home early Tuesday after a night shift and used his laptop for a while before sleeping.

“I left my laptop in sleep mode on a bed and slept in another bedroom. An hour later, around 8.30am, I woke up with a choking sensation and I started to vomit. There was thick black smoke in the entire flat. The portion of the mattresses where I had kept my laptop was on fire. I could not see anything and rushed to the bathroom to get some air,” Singh said.

“My wife had left for work by then after locking the flat from outside. The smoke was so thick that It was not possible for me to go to the main door and open it . I opened the window of the bathroom and saw a beam on the opposite side — at a distance of about 4-5 feet. I crawled out of the window and jumped on to the beam and raised the alarm,” he added.

Society residents who heard his cries rushed to the spot and also informed the fire department.

Sunil Kumar Singh, chief fire officer, said, “It was a scary situation. We had to break into his flat and all rooms were filled with thick smoke. we managed to douse the fire that probably started from the laptop kept on the bed. Then our firemen went to the roof and used ropes to pull Rahul to safety.”

Singh hails from Etah in UP and his wife is a teacher at a playschool in Raj Nagar Extension.

“The man suffered scratches in his escape through the small window. There was no option for him but to move out of the flat at any cost. So the window was the only available exit,” the CFO said.