Kateryna Pechura is a mother of two, and told Reuters she heard the sound of the helicopter coming down, then saw the fireball.
She said, "I looked at the window and saw an object, a glowing red-orange light going down above the nursery, falling down. I thought, at first I thought it was a rocket because everything went dark, there were shrapnels falling everywhere. I looked through the window again and I saw dead bodies laying there and fragments of the object."
Video posted to social media shows horrified residents reacting to the inferno.
Ukrainian emergency services said more than a dozen people died in the crash, including at least one child, as well as the country's minister of the interior, who was aboard the helicopter.
Dozens more were injured.
This seventeen-year-old who declined to give his full name said he and other volunteers raced to render aid, choking on smoke and barely able to see.
He said, "Then we heard screams, children were running around and we began to help. They were passing children over the fence, and we managed to take three of them, one boy and two girls."
Pechura, the mother, told Reuters her daughter normally attends the nursery, but thankfully kept her home after after a teacher called in sick.
She seemed to fight back tears and she described her fears.
She said, "We came out and we looked at what happened, bodies with torn off clothes. The children were crying, mothers were screaming, someone was running carrying kids shoes, clothes. It was awful."
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy ordered an investigation into what he said was a "terrible tragedy".
