Feb. 11--SOUTH BEND -- An apartment fire claimed two lives and injured four other people early Sunday morning on the city's southeast side.
The blaze started about 4:30 a.m. in a four-unit building the South Bend Housing Authority manages in the neighborhood east of Miami Street and north of Bowman Cemetery.
South Bend Fire Battalion Chief David Maenhout said there were two adults and three children inside the two-story apartment at 1248 E. Haney Ave.
Maenhout wouldn't disclose the names or ages of the victims Sunday because firefighters wanted to notify relatives before releasing that information. He said one those injured is a neighbor who was trying to help during the fire.
All four survivors were taken to Memorial Hospital for treatment, Maenhout said. A nursing supervisor said Sunday evening that two people remained in the hospital; another was in critical condition and had been transferred to a burn center.
Cheryl Worsham, who lives in a house next to the apartment building, said her husband smelled the fire when he let their dog out early Sunday morning.
She walked outside to see smoke rolling down Haney Avenue and flames emerging from the structure's windows.
"There was a woman crying that her babies were in the house," Worsham recounted tearfully Sunday afternoon. "I just put my arms around her and hugged her and held on to her until the police car was ready to take her to the hospital."
Worsham said the woman had escaped the fire by jumping with her 6-year-old from the apartment's second-story window, and she hit her head on a gas meter upon landing. Worsham said the two people who died inside the building were the woman's other children.
Firefighters asked Worsham to provide blankets and socks for the residents who had to leave their apartments Sunday morning. She said she later invited those neighbors into her house.
Yellow tape blocked the entrances to two of the apartments Sunday afternoon -- and charred debris was still lying on the porch and grass in front of the building -- but residents of the other two units were able to return to their homes.
Worsham said the five people who were in the apartment during the fire didn't normally live there. They were visiting while the full-time resident was out of town, she said.
Maenhout said the fire appears to have started in the living room on the apartment's ground floor. Investigators are looking into what caused it, he said, and confirming that the building's smoke alarms were in working order.
Last month, South Bend officials celebrated the city's good fortune to make it through all of 2012 without a fire fatality.
Unfortunately, they won't be able to celebrate the same achievement for 2013.
Staff writer Kevin Allen:
574-235-6244
Copyright 2013 - South Bend Tribune, Ind.
