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Mom drops children from burning Richmond apartment

Posted at 10:43 PM, Oct 26, 2017
and last updated 2017-10-27 23:23:37-04

RICHMOND, Va. -- As a fire tore through her next door neighbor's Oliver Crossing apartment in Richmond, smoke poured into Jasmine Spencer's unit. Two of her three children and her disabled mother were inside of her apartment.

"It was a lot of smoke...really dark heavy smoke," Spencer said. "Eventually I'm breaking down on to my knees because I'm so afraid for the baby," Spencer said.

Spencer ran to the window and started screaming for help.

"There was a crowd of people outside, and they were just like drop the kids down, we're going to catch them," Spencer said.

With no time to waste, she realized dropping the kids out of her second-story apartment might be her best option to save their lives.

"There was so much going on my first motherly instinct was to just get them to safety," Spencer said.

So, first she released her one-year-old daughter.

"I wrapped her in a blanket and sent her down, they caught her," Spencer said.

She then released her five-year-old son.

"My heart dropped because I'm putting my faith into other people's hands...my children's lives into other people's hands...thank God they caught them," Spencer said.

The children were not injured.

Firefighter's rescued Spencer's mom, and Spencer managed to run down the stairs and outside to safety.

"Words could not explain how thankful and appreciative I am right now," Spencer said.

The Red Cross is assisting Spencer and her family right now, but they lost a lot of their stuff due to smoke damage.

If you can help the family, send us a note.​ A GoFundMe account has also been established.

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