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Tennis players evacuated from deadly fire
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-05-02 15:41 A fire broke out at a luxury hotel in Rome
Saturday, killing three people and forcing the evacuation of tennis stars Andy
Roddick, Marat Safin and other players in the Italian Open, officials said.
Tennis
players Mariano Zabaleta of Argentina, left, and Andy Roddick of the
United States leave the luxury Parco dei Principe hotel near Rome's Villa
Borghese park, Saturday, May 1, 2004 where a fire broke out killing an
American and two Canadians, fire officials said. The fire broke out before
dawn in a room on the third floor of the hotel.
[Reuters] | None of the players was injured,
although some — including Safin — had their equipment damaged, said Nicola
Arzani, communications director for the ATP Tour.
The fire broke out at about 5:15 a.m. in Room 305 of the five-star Parco dei
Principi hotel, police and fire officials said. Police took two American women,
24 and 25, in for questioning because the blaze started in their room, but said
they were being treated as witnesses, not suspects.
Smoke and flames spread quickly throughout the floor and to other parts of
the hotel.
One American man died after he tried to escape the fire by shimmying down his
balcony using a bedsheet and slipped, said police official Giuseppe Andruzzi.
Firefighters found a Canadian couple dead in their bathroom, apparently after
they suffocated from the smoke, he told a press conference.
The blaze and smoke forced the evacuation of the hotel's 350 guests,
including American No. 2-ranked Roddick, the Russian Safin, Mariano Zabaleta of
Argentina and Max Mirnyi of Belarus.
Mirnyi was seen covering himself with a blanket outside the hotel in the
early morning cold, wearing only shorts.
The Italian Open starts Monday, and nearly all the affected players had to
rearrange their practice schedules, Arzani said. "A lot of people lost
equipment," Arzani said.
The American women taken in for questioning were being considered as
witnesses and could leave Italy, the police official Andruzzi said.
A U.S. Embassy spokesman said the women had spoken with a U.S. consular
official.
Police and fire officials identified the dead as James Lawery, of the
American state of Georgia, and Bernice Mary Joan Busque of Connors, Canada and
Paul Emile Busque of Lac Frontier, Canada.
The U.S. Embassy spokesman said the wife of the dead American had survived
the blaze.
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