By Denise Hollinshed
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
COUNTRY CLUB HILLS, Mo. — Neighbors were left wondering Sunday what, if anything, they could have done differently to save two people, one a paraplegic man, found dead in a fire here.
“We did everything we could, it just wasn’t enough,” said neighbor Darnell Gardner, 50.
Officials said the fire broke out about 12:30 a.m. Saturday in a small home in the 7500 block of Calvin Avenue in Country Club Hills, a tiny municipality across Lucas and Hunt Road from the Norwood Hills Country Club.
Officials from Northeast Ambulance and Fire Protection District on Sunday had not released the cause of the fire. They also did not release the names of the victims, but family members identified them Sunday afternoon as Anthony L. Shields, 49, and his cousin, Lewis McDowell.
Gardner said he ran to the house once alerted to the fire, but couldn’t get in through the front because the smoke was too thick. He and a few others congregated at a rear window, near where the paraplegic man was seen on the floor.
“We were trying to pull him from the window,” Gardner said. “He was just too heavy. He was responsive for a while. He was right there, at the bottom of the window.”
Gardner said firefighters struggled, too, and had to cut a larger opening at the window to get the man out.
He said firefighters recovered the other victim from a front room.
Shields’ niece, DeSummers Whitford, 38, of Florissant, said she and other relatives were in Kansas City attending her brother’s wedding when they received a call about the deaths early Saturday.
Whitford said Shields was paralyzed from a gunshot wound at least a decade ago and that McDowell often assisted in his care. She said her uncle was loved by many. She said he leaves behind three adult children, two brothers and two sisters.
“He was a people person,” she explained. “He loved his family and his kids.”
Jesse Bogan of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
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