Home»BALTIMORE CITY FIRE DEPARTMENT»INCIDENTS»2014 Fires and Incidents»Building Collapse 1928 Ramsay St. 12-7-14

Shortly after 9:00AM on December 7, 2014 a bizarre event began unfolding in a southwest Baltimore neighborhood. Baltimore City Police observed seeing a drug transaction taking place and began chasing a suspect. The suspect fled and somehow got to the rooftops of the houses in the 1900 block Ramsay Street. When confronted by the Police on the roof, the suspect threatened suicide. He then bolted across the rooftops and when he reached the last house the roof collapsed inward trapping him under the debris on the first floor of the vacant structure.
Fire Department crews along with the Special Operations Team and Collapse Unit responded to the scene and after surveying the building began shoring up the outside wall next to an alley that was bulging outward. Crews surveyed the interior with cameras and spotted the trapped suspect buried in debris under a bathtub on the first floor rear area. Crews continued shoring up the outside wall and after about an hour the Howard County Fire Department’s Special Operations Team from Rivers Park was called in to assist the City.
For more than six hours both teams worked together shoring up the bulging exterior wall and gaining entry to the interior. Crews opened the boarded up windows in the rear and on the side of the vacant dwelling and eventually made their way into the first floor shoring up the ceilings and floors as they made their way to the back.
After another sweep with the cameras now they couldn’t locate the suspect anywhere inside. Now they didn’t know if he had escaped or was hidden somewhere else further inside the debris.
It was then decided to call in the K9 Unit from the Howard County Police to continue to search for the suspect inside. When they arrived with the dogs the handlers decided it was still too dangerous for the dogs to enter the dilapidated building. After a final scan with the cameras they still couldn’t locate the suspect anywhere so the operation was halted and crews started packing up their equipment. The Police left the scene and as crews were beginning to re-board up the openings, the suspect was spotted escaping from an opening from the cellar in the rear and fled from the scene before anyone could give chase.