SOUTH SALT LAKE — As flames roared around her, the woman was screaming about her children.

"I said, 'If you can throw the babies we can catch them!"' Luis Provedor recalled.

The children were flung out the window as people down below tried to catch them. Provedor caught one of them — a little boy.

"Unfortunately, they didn't catch one of them and he fell to the floor," neighbor Edith Garcia said.

Five people were injured in Monday's three-alarm fire at the Mountain Shadows apartments, near 3900 South and 700 West.

A 19-year-old woman is hospitalized in critical but stable condition after she jumped from a top-floor window and hit a railing down below. A 2-year-old and an 8-month-old child were taken to the hospital. South Salt Lake firefighters said a 20-year-old woman was treated for smoke inhalation and a 59-year-old man suffered minor scrapes when he slipped and fell in a parking lot.

Garcia sat in a bus with her neighbors, a 4-year-old boy clinging to her. He was thrown from the top floor by his mother. His tiny bare feet were poking out of a blanket, his tear-stained face still stunned.

"He's scared," she said. "He saw the flames and heard his mom yelling 'Help!"'

"(A toddler) lit a pillow on fire and panicked and threw the pillow out onto the balcony outside," South Salt Lake Fire Chief Steve Foote said. He said that a small grill with a small propane tank was on the balcony and the tank exploded.

Fire investigators estimate the damage to the building at more than $400,000.

"We heard a very strong explosion," said neighbor Jasmine Garcia.

The flames spread quickly to the other side of the building, where another panicked mother threw her child down to Scotty Silveira.

"I turned around and that's when the flames were there," he said. "I started upstairs and I couldn't make it past the second level because all the flames were there."

Kyle Bevan was driving by the apartment complex when he spotted the smoke and tried to help. He saw one of the women on the top floor throwing her dogs out the window and then yelling "somebody catch my kids!"

As burning debris from the fire fell around his head, Bevan and others did what they could to help.

"We were standing down there with blankets and sleeping bags and she was ready to jump, but she was too scared to jump," Bevan said. "She waited and the fireman ran up a ladder and got her."

Foote said firefighters arrived within two minutes of the call at about 8:30 a.m.

"We had fire that we could see from the station," he said.

Foote said his firefighters worked quickly to extinguish the blaze but were stunned to discover a fire hydrant outside the building was not working.