By Alex Branch
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
 
FORT WORTH, Texas — A 76-year-old woman was critically injured Wednesday as firefighters and residents rushed to rescue her from fire and thick smoke inside her Como neighborhood home.

Firefighters used a thermal-imaging camera to find Margaret Majors lying in her kitchen and then used a ventilator to help her breathe.

Majors was flown to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. Hospital officials said her condition was not available Wednesday evening.

Merle Jackson, a hairstylist at the nearby Faze 1 beauty salon, was also hospitalized after she was overcome by smoke while trying to help Majors.

"Merle and some guys ran over there to try to kick in the doors," said Yolanda Gentry, a Faze 1 customer. "Everyone was trying to help."

The fire was reported to 911 just before 1 p.m., fire officials said. When firefighters arrived, they found the house at Horne Street and Goodman Avenue burning and "very heavy" smoke.

Firefighters Mike McKee and Andrew Heimer, who was carrying the thermal-imagining camera, went in the back door while other firefighters entered through the front.

"It was smoky, but Heimer spotted her leg on the kitchen floor through the camera," McKee said. "We carried her out the back and used the ventilator to get her breathing."

Firefighters quickly extinguished the flames, some of which were in the attic, McKee said. Fire officials said the fire was electrical and probably started in the living room. Damage was estimated at $45,000.

Paramedics treated Majors in an ambulance while a helicopter ambulance landed in a field next to Como Elementary School. Worried relatives ran behind the ambulance as it drove Majors about a block to the field, where she was loaded into the helicopter.

"That's my grandmother," said a woman, hurrying to glimpse Majors in the stretcher. "We don't know how she's doing."

Majors was well known in the Como neighborhood, said a friend, Ozell Everhardt, who has known Majors since the 1950s. She often took her grandchildren to the Como Community Center. She has also lived in a nursing home.

"She has some health problems," Everhardt said. "I was down at the senior center when someone came in saying there was a fire. He described the house, and I said, 'Oh no, that's my friend's house.'"

Residents who tried to help knew Majors was home because they could see her walker at the front door, Gentry said. Some people tried to break windows and force open doors while others called her name.

Jackson, the hairstylist, inhaled smoke as she opened a screen door, said her mother, Loysie Miller. She said she expected her daughter to recover.

"The smoke just gushed out into her face," Miller said. "Some people were saying the door handles were so hot you could hardly even touch them. She just ripped it open."

However, they couldn't find Majors until firefighters, whom residents praised, arrived with the camera.

"The smoke was just so heavy," said Michelle Allen, who lives nearby. "Nobody could see her. But everyone did everything they could, and the whole neighborhood will be pulling for her to make it."

Copyright 2007 Fort Worth Star-Telegram 
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News