Florida Family Uses Window to Escape Apartment Fire

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. -- A family escaped through a window and a grandmother jumped from a ledge to escape a blaze that broke out before dawn Friday at the three-story Cambridge Square apartment complex.

No one was seriously injured, but Theresa Aina's hand was bandaged after receiving slight burns while attempting to find her five-year-old son, Johnson, in the thick smoke, she said. She also suffered heat blisters on her neck.

She woke her husband, John Aina, and he ushered their two older children, Christinah, 11, and Christopher, 10, out their ground unit's window. The mother found her screaming boy and dragged him to safety out the window too, she said.

"I was the one screaming, calling everybody," Theresa Aina said. "I heard [Johnson] scream. When I go outside, I couldn't breathe. He was crying 'mommy, mommy, mommy.'"

The 4:56 a.m. fire was contained to the Aina's apartment in the 6700 block of Johnson Street, but smoke caused damage in three other units, Hollywood Fire-Rescue Division Chief Mark Steele said.

The haze was dense enough that approaching fire crews could see the smoke about a mile away, he said. The fire was so intense that address numerals on apartment doors melted, indicating temperatures "upward of 1,000 degrees," Steele said.

More than 100 people were evacuated and stood outside as firefighters climbed up a ladder truck and checked for structural damage on the building's roof. Smoke could still be seen rising in the moonlight about two hours after it broke out.

Some residents credited their neighbor, Scherrie Mitchell, 27, for alerting them to the blaze.

Mitchell said she was watching television when she smelled smoke through an open window in her unit. She ran into the hallway, pulled the fire alarm and began banging on her neighbors' doors to wake them up. She had a bloody knuckle to show for her efforts.

Her mother, Shirley Mitchell, said she couldn't find Scherrie and needed a breath of fresh air, went out to a common area opening in the second floor and stood out on the ledge. She then jumped and suffered a cut on her leg, which was treated on scene. She was otherwise okay.

"I sat on the ledge to get air. Everybody said 'don't jump,'" Shirley Mitchell said, "I didn't panic. I knew to get some air. I guess I wasn't afraid because of the bushes."

The shrubs broke her fall.

Neighbors America Espinal and Shirley Ramos called Scherrie Mitchell their hero for alerting them to the fire.

"Definitely thankful. The smoke was so thick that it was burning my throat and my eyes," Espinal said. "Everyone was scattering around like mice."

Steele said the cause of the fire remains under investigation, but John Aina suspects it was caused by an electric stove that has been sparking and shocking him when used.

The American Red Cross was on site to provide assistance for the Aina family and three others in the uninhabitable units.

"It was terrible. I couldn't even describe it," Theresa Aina said, "It's a total loss."

McClatchy-Tribune News Service