12 hurt, one critically in apartment fire near Loyola University
BY STEFANO ESPOSITO, KARA SPAK, KIM JANSSEN AND TINA SFONDELES Staff Reporters March 14, 2011 1:53PM
Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM
Black smoke choked the stairwells and hallways, a trapped woman cried out for help, and Brian Long clung by his fingertips to his third-floor window ledge.
Long reached for a dangling utility cable, and then he fell — “crashing to the ground.”
Somehow, the 32-year-old Northeastern University student escaped with only cuts and a sore back side, after a blaze roared through a four-story apartment building near the Loyola University campus Monday morning, sending 12 people to area hospitals.
One man broke his back after jumping out of his fourth-floor window and was in serious condition at Illinois Masonic Medical Center, officials said. Another of the most seriously injured — a 31-year-old man — inhaled large quantities of smoke and was in critical condition at the same hospital, firefighters said.
“I’m just lucky to have survived this,” Long said, with a nervous chuckle.
Long echoed the feelings of many of the dazed, crying and relieved people who huddled outside the charred building Monday, waiting to see what, if any, of their possessions had survived the blaze, which began about 10 a.m. inside a third-story unit and was, according to firefighters, accidental.
Several residents said they heard smoke alarms squawking, but the smoke came so terribly fast.
LaTrone Latham, a 37-year-old factory worker who was trapped by flames and smoke on the fourth floor, was among those rescued by firefighters. He awoke to a young woman’s screams: “I can’t see! I can’t see!” He opened his door, couldn’t see anything, threw on pants and a coat and tried to feel his way along the hallway, holding his breath, but ended up in another apartment.
“There was a window, and I raised it,” said Latham, who was led down a ladder to safety by firefighters.
“I’m a pretty positive person,” said Latham. “I like to consider myself a fighter in my own way. But for a moment I wasn’t sure I would make it out.”
Maegan Washington, 21, a fine arts major at Loyola, said she woke to fire alarms and smoke seeping into her apartment.
“The first thing I thought of was: I have to grab Nala,” her 14-year-old tabby cat, said Washington, who tried to flee out the front stairs but was held back by the smoke.
“It was very dense,” Washington said. “I couldn’t see five feet in front of me.”
She and Nala ended up making it out through a back exit. She watched outside as the firefighters worked, keeping Nala warm under her jacket.
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