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69-year-old man dead in Detroit house fire on city's west side

Posted at 12:06 PM, Dec 02, 2017
and last updated 2017-12-02 17:15:08-05

The Detroit Fire Department says one man is dead after a fire on Cherrylawn near Elmhurst on the city's west side. 

Two men saved an 88-year-old woman but were not able to save her 69-year-old son, Lorenzo Hunter.

The men say they were outside in their car when they saw the flames break out,

"At first, I thought it was coming from down there and my car was parked down the street, we're like, 'What's going on?' I looked out the window, I jumped out and ran in the house," said Mark Hansen.

"We had to bust the glass because she couldn't get the door open," Hansen said.

He was able to get the woman out but said it was too hard to see to save Hunter. 

"She said her son was upstairs, I was trying to get him but it was too smoky in there, there were too many flames," Hansen said. "We couldn't get to him."

The family says Lorenzo was a funny man and helped take care of his mother. While they're devastated they lost one family member, they're thankful for the two men that stepped up.

Investigators have not determined how the fire started.