DETROIT (WXYZ) — Detroit firefighters were able to rescue a woman from a burning home on the city's Northwest side.
Watch Whitney Burney's video report:
The fire broke out around 8 a.m.at a home in the 20500 block of Plainview Avenue.
Battalion Chief Carl Billings with the Detroit Fire Department tells us that a resident was transported to the hospital. We're told she's being treated for severe burns.
Watch video of the rescue, courtesy of Dewayne Carr
As of Tuesday afternoon, the victim's family says the woman, who is almost 90 years old, is in the ICU but stable.
"The rear door was open, but the front door had to be forced, and she was just inside the front door," Billings said. "Everybody did a great job, had her out immediately, transported immediately, and everything went well from there."
Billings also wanted to remind residents that double key locks, which this resident had on the home's front door, can be very dangerous. Double key locks require a key to get out.
Before fire crews were able to make it to the scene, a pair of workers with Penguin Junk Removal saw the fire when they returned to the area to retrieve a pair of shoes. They went in to try to rescue the woman stuck in the home.
"We ended up seeing all the smoke coming out, so we go to the door, and we see the lady screaming," said Dewayne Carr. "We went to our truck and grabbed a crow bar and a sledge hammer to break the door down, we went to the back and there was another lady coming back from the smoke."
Carr said he and his co-worker, Nicholas Bryant, tried to enter the home to save the woman, getting as far as the kitchen 10-15 feet into the home before having to leave with all the smoke.
"It was pretty crazy; we came in, and we saw that her daughter ran out the back of the house, and she said, 'My mom is in the front room.' The only way we can get into the front of the room is going into the back of the room," Bryant said. "Made it to about the kitchen, but it was so smoky that I fell down and I couldn't make it to her...we pulled ourselves out, called the firefighters, great response, they came within five minutes."
"We saw the smoke, and being nosy saved lives," Bryant said. "Shoutout to the Detroit Fire Department...went straight to the problem and nipped it in the bud."
Several other neighbors also jumped in to help after smelling smoke.
"Smoke was coming all out this side. I mean black smoke and the smell was everywhere. People started gathering around. It was just chaos," said Russell Williams, who lives a few houses down.
Williams says he was tending to his garden when he noticed the smoke.
"I could see the smoke billowing out the roof, and then the windows bust out. Black smoke was just coming out everywhere, and I could actually hear the lady saying, ' Please help me get out of here and I did what I could do," said Williams.
"What do you think it says about yourself and this neighborhood that you all were willing to risk your lives for your neighbor?" 7 News Detroit Reporter Whitney Burney asked Williams Tuesday.
"I’ve been living over here for 40 years, and I didn’t know the elderly lady, but I just wanted to pitch in, try to save somebody’s life, do what I could do, and hopefully she’ll be okay," said Williams.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
