DETROIT – City of Detroit maintenance workers could only board up the windows in the charred and frozen aftermath of a deadly fire that tore through a home on 12000 block of Rutherford – near Greenfield and I-96 – on Detroit’s west side early Sunday morning.
The house was still wrapped in ice and yellow police tape as of Sunday afternoon.
The first calls came right before 6 a.m. with a report of three people, a woman and her two small kids, ages 4 and 6, possibly trapped inside the burning home.
“I looked out the window, it’s 6 in the morning and I’m like ‘what’s that baby doing outside with a pull up on,’” a neighbor who went by Marcus said.
Marcus lives in the house next door, and he sprang into action when he saw the 4-year-old boy that neighbors described as “autistic” standing outside in the 5-degree weather.
“I didn’t even put on no pants,” Marcus said. “I came out with my shorts on, ran out here and grabbed the baby, and then I came back and got her in the house.”
When rescue crews arrived, they found the 6-year-old girl in the living room having suffered severe burns.
“I said, I think it’s another kid in there, because she was screaming and hollering,” Marcus said. “We couldn’t understand what she was saying because she was screaming so loud.”
“She tried to go back in there and get the baby, yeah, but it was too much,” he added. “The house was engulfed in flames.”
“The 6-year-old was transported by our EMS crews to Sinai Grace hospital. Unfortunately, the child did not survive,” Detroit Senior Fire Chief Leo Spitzig said. “It’s a very difficult morning for the city of Detroit and the Detroit Fire Department.”
Sunday morning’s bitterly cold temperatures only complicated matters during the rescue.
Dispatch audio caught the moment firefighters realized one of the hydrants near the home was frozen and didn’t work but they were able to eventually put the fire out.
“One of the hydrants on the corner was out of service frozen,” Spitzig said. “But that was not a factor.”
The woman and the 4-year-old boy were also taken to Sinai-Grace.
The mother is in serious condition while the boy suffered smoke inhalation and should fully recover.
No firefighters were injured in this fire and the cause of is currently under investigation by the Detroit Fire investigation division and Detroit Police Department.
Spitzig says the entire ordeal, including the loss of a 6-year-old girl just 11 days before Christmas, is a very difficult one to swallow.
“It’s obviously sad whenever we lose somebody, but when it is a child, it really hits home to all of us.”