Chef who survived hotel fire speaks out: He recounted the horror he experienced!

Mustafa Serbest, a chef who survived the hotel fire at the Bolu Kartalkaya Ski Center that claimed the lives of 78 people, recounted what he experienced on the night of the fire.

Noting that he had been working as a chef at the Grand Kartal Hotel during the winter season for 3 years and therefore knew the region and the hotel well, Serbest expressed that he could not forget the night of the fire.

'THE GARAGE DOOR WAS LOCKED'

Explaining that his room was on the second floor of the hotel, Serbest said, "I woke up to the sound at night; a friend woke us up. It was around 02:45-03:00. There were shouts of 'Fire!'. When we went out, everything was already filled with smoke. I panicked and didn't know what to do. It was so smoky that we couldn't breathe, and our eyes couldn't see. I made my way out by feeling the walls, as I knew the path more or less. We headed toward the garage. The garage door was locked. About 15-20 of us tried to lift the garage door. Then we managed to get out. Up until that point, there weren't many flames, just smoke. I got out at 03:30. We struggled inside for about half an hour or 40 minutes," he said.

Serbest stated that when he got outside, the hotel was engulfed in flames and he saw people calling for help from the windows of their rooms.

WOODEN DOOR DETAIL

Mustafa Serbest noted that the fire department arrived at the scene about an hour later and that he witnessed people jumping from windows to save themselves, saying, "We had the chance to save some, but we couldn't save others. Before they jumped, we were throwing mattresses underneath. We were trying to aim for those who were jumping," he said.

Arguing that there were not enough fire safety measures at the hotel, Serbest continued:

"There was a fire detector in the hotel, but it wasn't working. I didn't see any fire extinguishers, so to speak. As far as I know, there was one in front of the head chef's office. I never saw any others. There was no sprinkler system in the hotel. There was a fire escape, but staff were actually using it. There were warning signs, but the lighting was insufficient. The door to the fire escape was made of wood. Most likely, when one of the doors caught fire, the smoke entered inside."

'WE LIVED THROUGH HELL'

Expressing that he never wants to go to Kartalkaya again, Serbest said, "I regret that I didn't die, because if you heard those screams... A father was throwing his own child. Could you live through something like that? Everyone put their own lives on the line. Everyone jumped as a last hope. It was a desperate struggle for survival there. Everything was filled with screams. You can't help, you can only watch. You helped as much as you could, but you couldn't do more. There were times we went in and had to come back out without being able to save anyone. Everything was smoke. We lived through hell," he stated.