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Lorry driver saves man from burning building in Dublin by parking under window

Lorry driver saves man from burning building in Dublin by parking under window

Irish Times6 days ago

A lorry driver on his daily delivery round in Dublin saved a man from a burning building on Granby Row in
Dublin's
north inner city on Monday morning.
A video posted to social media shows Tomasz Zareba, who delivers groceries for the Eurospar chain, parking his lorry outside the burning building, allowing a man to jump from a window to land on the vehicle.
Mr Zareba told The Irish Times that he 'thought it would be much safer for him to jump on the lorry instead of the footpath'.
The driver had already seen someone jump from the building before parking his lorry beside the window.
READ MORE
'One guy was lying on the footpath. He had blood on his face, and I think he might have broken both his legs when he jumped from the building,' he said.
He then saw another man 'screaming from the window'.
Tomasz Zareba: 'It would be much safer for him to jump on the lorry instead of the footpath'
'He didn't know what he was supposed to do because he had flames behind him, and the long drop below him,' said Mr Zareba.
'I reversed the lorry as close as I safely could to the window and the other lads from the footpath told him to jump on the roof of the lorry.
'He was okay, I think. I asked him how many people were in the building, but he didn't know because he was in shock.'
The lorry driver waited at the scene 'in case maybe somebody else would need to jump from the window'.
Once Dublin Fire Brigade arrived, Mr Zareba left the scene and continued his deliveries for the day.
Footage posted online captured a truck driver saving a man from a burning building on Granby Row in Dublin's north inner city yesterday
Gardaí assisted emergency services at the scene at around 8.15am.
Six fire engines attended the scene of the fire. Seven people were treated at the scene, and three were hospitalised.
Mr Zareba is originally from Poland and has been driving a lorry in Ireland since 1998. The cause of the fire is not yet known.
Dublin Fire Brigade and gardaí at the scene of a fire on Granby Road, Dublin 1. Photograph: Sam Boal/Collins Photos

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The loss of never becoming a grandparent: ‘You always assume it's going to happen to you'
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The loss of never becoming a grandparent: ‘You always assume it's going to happen to you'

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Read the headlines and wonder if everyone is on Ozempic and has ADHD? It's all a bit overwhelming

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I'm paying €757 to keep my child busy for 3.6 hours a day. Summer childcare maths doesn't add up
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Irish Times

timea day ago

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I'm paying €757 to keep my child busy for 3.6 hours a day. Summer childcare maths doesn't add up

I used to believe in spreadsheets, that formulas and colour coding had magical powers to put order on a chaotic world and reveal the path to an optimised life. It worked for travel planning, for career choices and for household budgets. But then I tried to make it understand the magical thinking of the maths of Irish family life, and both my spreadsheet and my faith in rationality disintegrated into a sea of alarming little red triangles with exclamation points. The final straw was summer holiday childcare maths. Irish workers are entitled to four weeks of annual leave per year, while Irish schools and (many) preschools are closed for about 13 weeks a year. Parents can request unpaid 'Parent's Leave' from their employer, which is roughly 2 weeks per year per child for the first 12 years. This would mean that even if there are two parents, and each takes different holidays, and the unpaid leave, a max of 10 of the 13 weeks off could be covered. 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This idea of 'summer hours' is common in some parts of Europe, but would probably take government support to become mainstream here. Parents have built patchwork systems that somehow work, cobbled together from WhatsApp groups, favours, and sheer will. Imagine what we could do if the official systems tried even half as hard. Liz Carolan works on democracy and technology issues, and writes at

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