By Cindy Gonzalez and Kevin Cole
Omaha World-Herald (Nebraska)
Copyright 2006 The Omaha World-Herald Company
Frantic to give their 2-year-old daughter a breath of fresh air, Joaquin and Hilaria Archundia dropped the barefoot toddler into the arms of rescuers below.
Nearby, Guadalupe Silva dangled from a higher window, too frightened to follow the nephew who had jumped from their smoke-filled apartment building onto glass-splattered ground.
Martin Camargo, meanwhile, had pulled his wife away from their ledge, assuring her that they had a few more minutes before they would have to leap to safety.
Such was the chaotic scene early Tuesday morning at the most devastating Omaha-area fire in more than 20 years. Four people died and 12 were injured, many while jumping out of windows at the 23-unit Colonial House Apartments at 2206 K St.
Among those killed were a father and son: Juaquin Camargo Sr., 41, and Christopher Camargo, 11. The two lived in a third-floor apartment with their wife and mother, whose name was not immediately available.
Sara Gonzalez, the apartment manager, said the two Camargo families are not related.
Another man and a woman also were killed, said Sgt. Teresa Negron, a police spokeswoman. Their identities had not been confirmed Tuesday, she said.
Autopsies will be conducted on all four victims.
Gonzalez broke down and cried when she heard news of the death of Juaquin and Christopher Camargo.
“The father was a good man, a very religious man,” Gonzalez said. “I was afraid of this because I did not see them at South High or at Creighton (University Medical Center).”
Fire Battalion Chief Joe Fuxa said all four bodies were found inside the building. Firefighters carried two of the dying outside and unsuccessfully attempted to resuscitate them, Fuxa said.
Four people remained hospitalized Tuesday night.
Tricia Akerlund, spokeswoman for the Creighton University Medical Center, said all four were listed in serious condition. Injuries included cuts, smoke inhalation and broken bones from jumping to safety.
Omaha fire investigators are working with homicide detectives to determine the cause of the fire. It is standard practice for homicide detectives to assist in fire investigations involving a death.
“It’s just a guess on my part, but I don’t think any cause will be announced until at least (Wednesday),” Fuxa said.
Fuxa said the fire began in a stairwell but that investigators hadn’t determined which floor it started on.
Firefighters were called to the building at 2:32 a.m. The first crews rescued residents -- who were jumping from windows and tossing children to safety — while other crews began extinguishing flames in the building’s common area, Negron said.
The fire was declared under control at 3:18 a.m.
Martin Camargo and his wife, Graciela, were among the families treated at Creighton University Medical Center after the fire.
While waiting for relatives to come and get them, the couple described how they were roused by smoke and alarms.
“I went to the kitchen — there was smoke everywhere,” Martin Camargo said.
Like others who lived on upper floors, the Camargos broke out the window of their living room.
“My wife wanted to jump,” Martin Camargo said. “I pulled her back. Nobody was there to catch her.”
A survivor of a fire in California, Camargo tried to remain calm. He persuaded his wife to wait until rescuers extended a ladder.
By then, Guadalupe Silva’s nephew, Raul, already had jumped from the third-floor apartment where they lived with two other relatives who weren’t home at the time.
Raul urged his aunt to follow, but she ended up dangling from the window for what seemed like more than 15 minutes.
“He kept screaming, ‘Jump, aunt. I’m here,’” Guadalupe Silva recalled.
She was barefoot, however, and shards of glass and other debris covered the ground beneath her. Silva kept thinking about her 11-year-old son she supports in Mexico. She didn’t want to get injured so badly that she couldn’t care for him. She couldn’t spot a safe landing spot.
“I just hung on,” she said.
After Silva was rescued by ladder, she and her nephew were taken to the hospital. Raul remained at Creighton on Tuesday, his aunt said, with head and leg injuries.
Four hours after the fire was declared under control, the scent of smoke lingered outside the apartments, where a Mexican flag still hung from a window and two bodies lay covered on the front lawn. The apartments were home primarily to Latino immigrants.
Walls around a back stairwell were charred black. Jagged glass peeked from windows with pushed-out screens.
Neighbor Ray Sheibal saw the stairwell when it was engulfed in flames, preventing residents from escaping. Sheibal ran to the apartments with his wife and began helping residents on the north side.
People were beginning to break out windows, he said. A woman who had just jumped to safety ran around screaming for her family. “It was a very bad panic scene,” he said.
A woman on the second floor held a baby boy wrapped in a blanket. “She looked at me and yelled, ‘Take my baby,’” he said. Sheibal grabbed the infant from the window and handed him to another person.
Sheibal’s attention then turned to an older girl about 4 feet tall on the third floor, where smoke was the heaviest. The girl was poised to jump. Sheibal steadied himself on the ground, by then covered with glass from the broken windows.
The girl leaped.
“I caught her. Knocked me to the ground, but I caught her,” he said.
Someone produced a ladder that didn’t quite reach the third floor. Sheibal and another man climbed the ladder together and helped a woman down.
Jennifer Flores, 19, of Chicago, was visiting friends at the Colonial House.
“Right when the alarm went off, I heard a guy scream, ‘Fire, run out,’” she said. “I was so scared I only had time to get my three kids. We didn’t even put on shoes, but the Red Cross gave us sandals.”
Later, at the hospital, Joaquin and Hilaria Archundia drank juice from the cafeteria. Hilaria, the mom, was wrapped in a sheet and wore red slippers. Her hand had been cut and was bandaged.
Jessica, the daughter who had been dropped from the second floor into the arms of strangers, was running around in bare feet and a white dress, eating an occasional tater tot.
Hilaria said her husband was sleeping and she was watching a late-night TV program when the alarms sounded.
Dark smoke already had filled the hallway and had seeped into their apartment. They broke out a window and yelled for someone to take Jessica.
“It was dark and very hot,” she said. “We wanted to save our daughter.”
The couple later descended from their apartment by ladder.
Hilaria paused and tears welled in her eyes as she finally had a free moment to reflect on the morning’s events.
Her husband scooted Jessica toward them. “We are safe,” he said.
The last Omaha fire with so many fatalities was in August 2004, when four members of the Maria Montanez and Arturo Hernandez family died in a fire at their home at 4313 S. 27th St. Montanez and three children died in the fire, which was caused by a burning candle.