This story first appeared in today morning’s Daily Post. To get all of the local news, pick up the Post in the mornings at 1,000 Mid-Peninsula locations.
BY EMILY MIBACH
Daily Post Staff Writer
A man who climbed to the top of an apartment building in downtown Redwood City, took off his clothes and threw tiles at firefighters below, ultimately died after jumping into a ventilation shaft, a fire official said yesterday.
The man, who the San Mateo County Coroner’s Office was still working to identify yesterday, was believed to have been homeless.
Firefighters were called to the complex at 99 Maple St. around 1:40 p.m. Thursday (Aug. 18) on report of a fire alarm, said fire Battalion Chief Geoff Balton.
When firefighters got there, they saw a naked man throwing roof tiles onto the ground from about four stories up, Balton said.
One of those tiles hit a firefighter, who did not have to be taken to the hospital, Balton said.
As police and firefighters checked, the man got into a vertical vent that had about four feet of water in the bottom of it, Balton said.
Police and firefighters were able to contact the man while he was in the vent, and they tried to get him out, but the man refused any help and “ultimately submerged himself,” Balton said.
After the man submerged himself, police went in and pulled him out of the vent, but he had no pulse and wasn’t breathing, Balton said. The paramedics on scene tried to revive the man, but were unsuccessful and he was declared dead at the scene.