DETROIT – A woman is in critical condition after police said she jumped from the seventh floor of an apartment building to escape a fire.
Police said broke out on the seventh floor of an apartment building on Grand River Avenue on Detroit's west side.
Antonio Smith encouraged Kia Brown to jump then caught her. He was holding out a blanket while others put couch cushions on the ground.
"I was talking to her to jump out the window, that was the only way she was going to get out of there," Smith said.
He said they were able to catch the Brown, but she bounced off and fell to the ground.
"When she fell, the blanket didn't land squarely on the mattress, then she went into shock," said Brown's friend Andrew Belcher. "She hit the ground too hard."
Brown suffered a broken pelvic bone and two collapsed lungs. She was rushed into surgery at Detroit Receiving Hospital.
Fire crews put out the fire and three other people who were inside the building were taken to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation, police said.
Tenants said they tend to ignore the smoke alarms because there are a lot of false alarms at the apartment.