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Dec. 22--When Joseph Mixen, 42, left the Hazel Park apartment he shared with his father to go to work this morning around 4:45 a.m., he said his dad was sitting up in his chair watching TV.
A few hours later, firefighters responded to a fire at the Woodward Heights Manor apartment complex at 1045 E. Woodward Heights Blvd. Dennis Mixen Sr., 64, didn't make it out alive, his son, Joseph Mixen, said.
"I heard that he tried to get out," he said.
Dennis Mixen, who needed care after he suffered two heart attacks and a stroke, was found near the door.
The father of three returned home from the hospital on Tuesday and had trouble walking. He was a huge Detroit Lions fan and enjoyed watching westerns, Joseph Mixen said.
The fire started in his first-floor apartment, fire officials said, and is believed to have started from careless smoking, Hazel Park Fire Chief Ray DeWalt said.
Smoke quickly spread throughout the complex.
Resident Alfred Carr, 42, and his wife, Veronica Carr, 52, woke to a neighbor banging on the door and yelling "Fire! Fire! Fire!"
"You could just see flames shooting out of the apartment on the bottom floor," Alfred Carr said.
When firefighters arrived at the three-story building, they pulled three people out, DeWalt said. In all, three people and a police officer were transported to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation, he said.
Much of the first floor of 56-unit complex received smoke damage and at least nine of the apartments have serious damage, DeWalt said.
Free Press staff writer Tammy Stables Battaglia contributed to this report.
