Man who set himself ablaze on Mall dies
Print Edition
A MAN who set himself on fire on the National Mall on Friday has died of his injuries, a District of Columbia police spokesman said yesterday.
Officer Araz Alali says the man died on Friday night at a Washington hospital where he had been airlifted.
He said the man was so badly burned that he will need to be identified through DNA and dental records.
The man poured a can of gasoline on himself in the center portion of the mall on Friday afternoon. He then set himself on fire, with passing joggers taking off their shirts to help douse the flames. Police are investigating the man’s possible motives for doing so.
Police responded to an emergency call about a fire shortly before 4:30pm on the Mall lined by Washington’s famed Smithsonian museums, police spokesman Hugh Carew said earlier.
The apparent self-immolation in the heart of Washington’s tourist area rattled the city a day after a car chase that began at the White House ended in a fatal shooting outside the US Capitol.
Nicole Didyk, an environmental engineer for the Federal Aviation Administration, said she was out for a run when she spotted a man with small flames on him. She said she watched in shock as several men rushed toward him, searching as they ran for water or blankets.
“Nobody had anything so they just ended up pulling off their shirts and tamping him down with them,” Didyk said. “They got him to sit down and roll on the ground to put (himself) out.”
Throughout the ordeal, the man “was stunningly silent,” she said. “The men that put him out told me that while they were helping him he was telling them, ‘Thank you, thank you.’”
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