An A-Level student spent hours working through the night to help victims of the Grenfell Tower fire, before sitting his national exam the following morning. Rory Walsh, 18, volunteered at the Maxilla social club at two o'clock in the morning, just a couple of hours after the blaze erupted, and helped coordinate donations and assist displaced families seeking shelter.
After volunteering throughout the night, Rory went to Richmond College in west London at eight o'clock in the morning to sit his English language and literature exam. The teenager had woken up in the early hours of Wednesday morning after the fire started in the tower block overlooking his house.
"I was here from 2am until 8am, and then my exam was at Twickenham so I had to journey over there – I got there a little late – and sat it," Rory told the Press Association. "I got extra time but I didn't use it, I just came straight back to help out. I wasn't going to go to the exam this morning but I thought I might as well and now we have just been running back and forth with shopping trolleys full of donations."
Meanwhile on social media, there have been mentions of fire victims sitting their national exams in pyjamas. One Twitter user wrote: "Girls from my 13yo's school who lived in #GrenfellTower lost everything and still turned up for GCSEs next day in night clothes."
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Seventeen people are confirmed to have died in the fire, although Scotland Yard says the death toll is expected to rise. Nearly 80 people are being treated in six hospitals across the city; 17 are still in critical condition. The search for remaining victims continues, and according to the London Fire Brigade commissioner it "could take weeks".