türkçe links to original Turkish article
(Hürriyet Newspaper, 25 January 2025)
Well-deserved cup of coffee and handiwork.
Gymnastics trainer Fatih Güller (67) retired after working for
42 years at Ankara University. He was invited for a vacation
to the Kartalkaya ski resort in Bolu by his niece Gülşen Doğan
Durdağ, who also went there with her husband and two children
on semester break from school.
They all stayed at the Grand Kartal Hotel, where a tragic fire
erupted on their first night. Güller, on the hotel's 8th floor,
tied bed sheets together and saved 11 people, including his
niece and her family, who descended on the bed sheet lifeline
to safety, although Gülşen hanım was injured when she fell
because of a tear in one of the sheets (!).
Güller related what had happened this way: "I was awakened
by the noise and smell. We heard someone yell 'the hotel's on
fire! Get out!'. We were in room 1020 on the 10th floor. I
told everyone ''leave all your stuff behind!'. I was able to grab
my phone and glasses. As we went out into the corridor we
found it was filled with thick smoke. We descended a couple
of floors but then the smoke became too thick to proceed."
On the 8th floor, we broke a window and got some air to breathe.
I said to everyone 'bring me blankets and sheets. I'll tie them
together and that's how we'll descend.' First we lowered the
children down and then the women. I had the end of the bed
sheet rope wrapped around my shoulder because there was no
where to tie it off. As my niece descended the bed sheet rope
snapped about three meters from the roof and she broke some
bones in her shoulder and her arm. Finally, I tied a big knot
on the end of the bed sheet rope and stuck it between the
window's hinges, lowering myself to safety. That's how I
recall saving 11 people, who called me later to thank me.
One of them was Ömer Bey from Trabzon, who called me
'yangındaş' (fellow fire survivor)."
Güller noted that there were no alarms sounding during the
fire: "I don't know whether or not there were fire escape
staircases. We didn't see anything at all related to "In Case
of Fire...' Had there been an alarm sounded I'm sure many
people would have been saved. I didn't do anything heroic.
Lots of others did the same thing."
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