Vish Sharma injured while frantically warning friends about fire at North Adelaide hotel
A man critically injured in the North Adelaide hotel fire frantically warned his friends about the blaze – before finding himself trapped.
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Music promoter Vish Sharma frantically knocked door to door during a fire in a North Adelaide hotel, trying to warn people before he became trapped in a room and overwhelmed by the smoke.
“He had to break through a window and come out (the balcony) and he badly injured his arm, too, trying to get out,” close friend Ekta Sharma has told The Advertiser.
Mr Sharma, 43, is one of three men being treated in the Royal Adelaide Hospital’s intensive care unit for serious injuries sustained in the fire, which broke out at the Comfort Hotel Adelaide Meriden about 6.30am on Sunday.
Mr Sharma was staying at the hotel after hosting a successful Indian musical at the Dom Polski Centre in Adelaide for his business, Rock On, when the fire started, forcing dozens of hotel guests to flee in their pyjamas.
Ms Sharma said Mr Sharma, of Trott Park, had been heroically trying to save band members staying at the hotel.
The father of two young children remains on a ventilator due to smoke inhalation and has a burnt head.
“We really have to hold our thoughts and prayers and hope he gets better,” Ms Sharma said. “We are holding on strong for him, we have to.”
Details of Mr Sharma’s brave attempts to warn fellow hotel guests came as police confirmed they were treating the fire as suspicious.
A Honda sports car was towed away from the hotel on Sunday afternoon as police and MFS fire-cause investigators examined a room destroyed by an explosion.
The late-model sports car is believed to belong to one of the other two men, aged 44 and 54, being treated at the RAH for serious burns. There is no suggestion the vehicle is associated with Mr Sharma.
Superintendent Matt Nairn told a media conference on Sunday morning he could not disclose details of who was inside the room where the fire started, throwing flames up to 10m into the air through a shattered window.
“We won’t go into who was in the room,” he said.
“At this stage, we do deem it as a suspicious fire.
“I’m not going to disclose the operational part of that at this stage other than to say it’s an ongoing investigation.”
The fire forced dozens of guests to flee into nearby streets in their nightwear.
One man with burns to his feet and hands jumped into a swimming pool in the hotel’s rear carpark.
MFS firefighters rescued 15 people from balconies using ladders and a cherry picker, with seven people taken to hospital with burns and smoke inhalation.
Police on Monday confirmed the fire was being treated as suspicious and the vehicle was being examined as part of an ongoing investigation. The investigation also is examining complaints by guests they could not hear fire alarms and received no instructions over a PA system to evacuate the hotel.
The MFS said while it was treating the fire as “accidental” after concluding its investigation, the exact cause was a matter for police to disclose.
Several guests told The Advertiser they heard what sounded like a loud argument before a woman started screaming “help us, help us” as smoke started billowing through corridors.
Some described the smoke as smelling like “an electrical fire” while others said it was “chemically”. Guests described hearing a series of small pops like gunshots before seeing a fireball erupt from a window on the hotel’s third floor.
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