By David Doege
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Copyright 2007 The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News
MILWAUKEE — Firefighters on Sunday revived a woman in front of her burning south side flat after they found her lifeless on the floor of her smoky kitchen.
“She was (not breathing) when they brought her out,” 3rd Battalion Chief Salvatore C. Santoro Jr. told a reporter on the street in front of the small duplex. “They revived her right where you’re standing.”
As the first firefighters to arrive at the scene were entering the building in the 1800 block of S. 16th St. about 12:30 p.m., a man living on the second floor with the woman suddenly burst through a window and fell to the ground, Santoro said.
“I don’t know if he jumped or if she pushed him out,” said Demetrius Boyd, who lives across the street from the duplex.
The woman was taken to Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center, while the man was taken to Froedtert Hospital in Wauwatosa, Santoro said. Their names, ages and conditions were not immediately available.
“I was in the back working on my vehicle and I smelled smoke,” Boyd said. “I went around to the front and I heard someone yell ‘Fire!’ ”
The upper flat was filling with smoke, Boyd said, and flames had pierced the roof when he and the driver of a Milwaukee County Transit System bus who had stopped his vehicle went to the front door of the duplex to alert the lower flat’s occupants. Boyd said a man and woman lived in the lower unit with three or four children. Boyd said they all got out safely.
Boyd said he believed the occupants of the upper flat were a man and his daughter.
Santoro said that neighbors alerted the first firefighters on the scene to the possibility that people were still in the upper flat and pointed the way to the entrance.
“That was very helpful,” he said.
After crashing through the second-floor window and landing on the grass outside the building, the man was groggy but indicated that a woman was inside, said Santoro.
“We found her on the floor of the kitchen,” Santoro said. “She had no pulse, and she wasn’t breathing.”
The cause of the fire was being investigated Sunday. Santoro estimated damage at $40,000.
“There were no working smoke detectors found on the first floor and not even the remains of a smoke detector were found on the second floor,” Santoro said. “This fire was very advanced by the time we got the call and got here. The people living there would have had a very early warning that there was a fire if there had been working smoke detectors.”