Turkey hotel fire Brits reveal how they survived horror blaze - and saved terrified guests

A heroic couple enjoying a romantic break helped save terrified guests when broke out at their hotel .

Andrew Byrne and his partner Sarah Kenny, 33, woke up to the smell of smoke in their top floor room at the resort of Marmaris on Friday morning. After checking the door they realised they could not escape that way and so went out on to their balcony where they hopped to the room next door. To escape the flames and smoke they continued hopping over the balconies and roused the elderly guests inside, eventually leading them all to safety.

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Andrew told the : “We were trying to connect to each other's data to send a message, to send voice notes to say goodbye. We were done.

“We were staying on the top floor in the main building in the hotel, and at approximately 5am local time I just woke up with the smell of smoke. The room was full of smoke, like full of dense smoke.

“I left the balcony door open just a crack, just for a bit of air, but I went to check the front door, and when we opened the front door, just slightly, the level of smoke came in and the pressure from the hallway just slammed the door shut again.

“I firmly believe if the door on the balcony wasn't open a crack, we wouldn't have woken up. We absolutely wouldn't have woken up.

“The elderly couples were ringing home to tell the family they were done. They were gone. And myself and Sarah were sending voice notes home to family to say goodbye.”

After passing each room, Andrew stooped to block the bottom of the doors with damp towels to keep out the smoke. They also raided the minibars for water so their elderly friends had something to drink.

Eventually they ran out of balconies to hop on to and made their final stand in a room at the end of the hall. They were all found safe around three hours later but the couple claim there had been no alarm at all.

The couple was among six people taken to hospital for smoke inhalation but were not seriously injured and all 680 guests were evacuated. The little group was later discharged from hospital and were recovering in another hotel on Friday night. Although they managed to recover some personal items from their room, including their passports, they lost a large amount of their clothing.

The blaze, which is believed to have started in the boiler room, comes three months after a deadly fire at the Grand Kartal Hotel in the Kartalkaya ski resort in Bolu Province in Turkey in which 78 people died and another 51 was injured.