A Kent man went from fire victim to arson suspect Thursday after police say he set fire to his apartment and needed rescuing from strangers.
Police say Ishmail A. Brown set the blaze at the Lake Fenwick Estates, 24849 46th Ave S., Thursday morning. Two men who live nearby saw the fire and tried to rescue Brown, said Kyle Ohashi, a spokesman for the Kent Fire Department.
"The guy was screaming obscenities and nonsense," Ohashi said. "He did not want to be rescued but these guys got him out."
The two men, Brandon Russo and Christian Esquer, say they saw the fire and grabbed a ladder, but realized it wouldn't work, so they instead kicked the door in to the burning apartment. They found a couch blocking the entryway.
"(Christian) kicked the couch and the door off the hinges," Russo said. "We tried to get in, but the smoke hit us in the face. We came down the steps and then we just started throwing up."
The men didn't give up, trying to coax Brown down from his third floor apartment.
"He realized he's on fire, so he started hanging out (the window), and we tried to get a ladder up. We told him, 'don't jump! Don't jump! We're getting a ladder," Russo recalled. "But he was too incoherent, and he fell."
All three men were taken to local hospitals to be treated for smoke inhalation. Esquer fractured his ankle, he said, kicking the door down.
"If it would've been a family member or somebody, I would've hoped they'd done the same thing for me," Esquer said.