Several people hurt saving grandmother from Holladay duplex fire
Oct 25, 2024, 10:30 AM | Updated: Dec 3, 2024, 4:33 pm
HOLLADAY — A woman is revisiting the moments she found herself in a house fire Thursday. While she was able to escape with her kids, her mother became trapped inside.
Neighbors, police officers, and firefighters risked their own lives, running into the flames in an attempt to rescue her mother from upstairs. Many of them ended up injured in the process.
The woman, Shannon O’Brien, described how it only took a few minutes for the fire to start in her mother’s duplex Thursday afternoon, with her family near the flames upstairs.
“That’s what my son says, the computer went boom,” O’Brien said. “I tried to put it out with a bucket, and with the shower. I couldn’t get it to go out. So, I just grabbed my kids.”
As O’Brien fled with her two young children, she said she tried to guide her mother to the top of the stairs, as smoke filled the home.
Her mother can’t walk very well, O’Brien said, so she ran downstairs to bring her kids outside to safety first.
When she went back for her mom, O’Brien explained her mother had become trapped and couldn’t get out. The smoke was too thick for O’Brien to navigate.
“I was in there probably a good ten minutes trying to get my mom to come out, and I could hear her in there,” she said. “And I just kept telling her, just to crawl out, ‘crawl out.’ And she just kept on saying she couldn’t breathe.”
That’s about when neighbor Sophie Payne described seeing the smoke from outside her townhome a few buildings down.
“The kids and family were running out yelling, and I just had kind of panicked,” she said. “So I called my neighbors to help, and kind of everyone came out and fled over there.”
Payne said she called 911, and the neighbor she asked to help rushed into the townhome in search of O’Brien’s mother.
By that time, Payne said the family living on the other side of the duplex had escaped as the fire spread to their unit.
Not able to make it to O’Brien’s mother, Payne said her neighbor came back out of the townhome, saying the smoke was too thick and he could feel himself losing consciousness and getting dizzy.
Instead, he stepped inside the door, she said, with a hose.
“All they could do was think, ‘Oh, just get the hose,’ you know, and spray down whatever they can,” Payne said.
Police officers arrived and tried next to reach O’Brien’s mother, but were also unable to because of the smoke. Ultimately the first crew of Unified Fire Authority firefighters on scene made the rescue.
“When we arrive on a scene like this, and we have local knowledge that tells us there’s a victim that’s inside … we live by a model that we’re going to risk a lot to save a lot,” said UFA public information officer Benjamin Porter. “And if there’s potential life to be saved, we’re going to do everything we can to try and change that outcome for somebody.”
Because of their efforts, O’Brien said her mom is hospitalized, but still alive.
“I guess her heart did stop, but then they revived her. So, she’s in critical condition,” O’Brien said. “But, she’s still alive right now.”
In all, he said, two people, five police officers, and one firefighter were hurt, from smoke inhalation and other injuries.
“The majority of everyone was treated on scene, not transported,” Porter said.
UFA said both units in the duplex are a total loss, and that because someone was critically injured in the fire and transported to the hospital, protocol requires a criminal investigation.
UFA said it is working with the Unified Police Department to do so. UFA’s public information officer since announced that the fire started because of a juvenile playing with a lighter.
The Red Cross said they are helping one family in one of the duplex units, but the other family declined Red Cross services.
Payne said she’s grateful for her neighbors and the community that helped, and she’s thinking of both families now displaced by the fire.
“My heart goes to them … I can’t even imagine,” Payne expressed. “Just prayers and love, to hope they’re okay.”
