NEW ALBANY, Ind. (WHAS11) -- An apartment fire in southern Indiana sends five people to the hospital and leaves four families homeless. The fire started at 8:30m Sunday at the Catherine Place Apartments in New Albany. Firefighters arrived to find a chaotic scene with 20 people trying to get out of a burning building.
People were jumping out of second story windows. Five people were taken to the hospital, mostly for injuries from those jumps, but fire crews also had to pull out a 2-year-old girl from inside, who was taken to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation.
New Albany Animal Rescue saved two cats and a dog. Firefighters say the apartment building, one of three in the complex, had only one working smoke detector inside one first floor apartment. Law requires that each apartment have a working smoke detector inside.
Investigators are still figuring out the cause of the fire, but they think it started in the basement.
