Rome
American tennis player Andy Roddick saved more than a dozen people from a fire in a five-star hotel in Rome this week. Roddick, in Rome to compete in the Italian Open, woke up when his sixth-floor room filled with black smoke. Opening the door, he found a group of gasping, choking people in the hallway and herded them onto the balcony of his suite to await rescue crews. Other guests jumped from higher floors onto Roddick’s balcony, among them Dutch tennis player Sjeng Schalken, who landed in Roddick’s arms. As the heat rose and windows began to explode, Roddick called his mom, in Florida, for instructions. She told him to soak towels in water and stuff them under the doors. “Mom,” said Roddick, “it’s way beyond that.” Three people died in the fire, but all the guests sheltered in Roddick’s suite survived.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
How Zohran Mamdani's NYC mayoral run will change the Democratic PartyTalking Points The candidate poses a challenge to the party's 'dinosaur wing'
-
Book reviews: '1861: The Lost Peace' and 'Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers'Feature How America tried to avoid the Civil War and the link between lead pollution and serial killers
-
Brian Wilson: the troubled genius who powered the Beach BoysFeature The musical giant passed away at 82
