By JAZARI KUHL
Nebraska Examiner
LINCOLN — A Lincoln man was hospitalized Tuesday night after a four-unit apartment complex near 21st and Washington Streets caught fire about 8:30 p.m.
First responders took the tenant of the burned unit to a local hospital. It was unknown by 10:30 p.m. whether he suffered any injuries, according to Battalion Chief Bob Watton.
“I heard the smoke alarm go off, and then I started smelling something burning,” Hector Santillan, who has lived in the building in the Near South neighborhood for two years, told the Nebraska Examiner.
Santillan said he walked out of his apartment and into the complex’s hallway and saw smoke coming from underneath an upstairs neighbor’s door. So he began banging and shouting on all three neighbors’ doors to alert them of the fire.
“I was pretty much panicking,” Santillan said.
Santillan said he ran outside to the building and went next door to ask neighbors to call 911. He then decided to grab whatever he could save from his unit, including his photo albums, birth certificate and passport.
While rushing outside with his belongings, Santillan said he saw one of his neighbors in the building stumble onto his second-story balcony.
“Dude, you got to (expletive) jump,” Santillan shouted from the front lawn up to his neighbor’s balcony. The man leapt from his balcony and landed near Santillan.
Santillan said he had recently purchased a home nearby and has been renovating it. However, he said, he decided to take the evening off and stay at his apartment. He wondered what would have happened to his neighbor if he hadn’t been there.
“All I was worried about was that he got out,” Santillan said.
Everyone else in the complex was evacuated. The cause of the fire wasn’t known Tuesday night.