New Delhi: Standing on an upturned bucket amid thick smoke and rising flames, head constable Dinesh Yadav hoisted a woman onto his shoulder and pushed her through a broken ventilation duct to safety. Moments earlier, the Nigerian woman had pleaded with him to rescue her daughter first.The dramatic rescue was among several carried out by personnel from South Delhi police stations who rushed into the burning Hauz Rani bed‑and‑breakfast on Wednesday morning as terrified occupants scrambled to escape.“I reached the spot and saw the building completely engulfed in flames,” Yadav told TOI. With other rescuers, he used ladders to reach the second floor and broke open a ventilation duct to enter the building. Inside a bathroom, they found a Nigerian mother and daughter who had taken shelter after being trapped by the fire.“She told me to save the daughter first because lifting her would be difficult. She also told me to get out quickly and save myself,” Yadav recalled. “I somehow managed to lift the mother onto my shoulder and push her out through the duct, which was around six to seven feet in height. Then I rescued the daughter,” said Yadav.Soon after, an electric pole outside caught fire, causing flames to spread rapidly through overhead wiring. Two Nigerian couples were trapped outside a fourth‑floor window, while a family of three was stuck at the other end of the floor. An Uzbekistani couple signalled for help from the second floor.“We kept assuring them that they could jump onto mattresses below,” Yadav said, adding that rescuers kept repositioning the mattresses to match where victims attempted to jump.Another first responder, head constable Deshraj, had just finished his night shift when he received a message about the blaze. Even before reaching the hotel, he helped clear traffic for fire tenders rushing to the spot.“We broke open the basement door and pulled people out. But after a while, breathing became difficult,” he said. Guests smashed windows for air, and rescuers took turns standing near them to catch their breath. Teams rotated in and out, pausing frequently for water.With stretchers unusable in the hotel’s narrow passages, the personnel improvised by dragging victims out on bedsheets. “One couple survived because they wrapped themselves in a wet bedsheet and lay on the floor,” Deshraj said.Head constable Kartar Yadav helped evacuate a neighbouring hotel to prevent the fire from spreading and broke open rooftop water tanks to channel water into the burning structure. The officers said they kept re‑entering the building as they had figured out the internal layout.The operation left several policemen with burns and cuts from shattered glass. Yet, they continued. “We knew we had to,” Deshraj said. “If we would not have done it, then who else would have?”