(Photo: MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES)
Seattle firefighters battle a South Park neighborhood house fire late Monday. A teenager died, and six people escaped. (Photo: CLIFF DESPEAUX / THE SEATTLE TIMES)Neighbor rescues all but one in fire
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
By Sara Jean Green
Seattle Times staff reporter
A 17-year-old boy was killed in a fire that gutted the garage of a South Park home Monday night.
Even though Jackie Schwendeman helped six people escape a burning house in South Park on Monday night, she grieved the life she couldn't save.
The 17-year-old boy who lived across the street was the same age as her daughter, after all.
"I was able to get everybody out but one," she said Tuesday afternoon, tears sliding down her face as she peered out her window at the charred wreckage of her neighbors' garage in the 8800 block of Fifth Avenue South.
She moved outside and watched from her front porch as the boy's parents, accompanied by a monk in orange robes and a Seattle Fire Department chaplain, prayed beside a gurney holding the teen's remains, moments before it was loaded into a van.
Schwendeman offered up her own prayer, her eyes squeezed shut and her palms pressed together: "Just wrap your arms around them. Bring them some comfort and peace, I beg you." It was Schwendeman, 48, who saw smoke billowing from her neighbors' garage Monday night when she took her puppy outside for a walk. She ran back into her house, yelled for her daughter to call 911, and sprinted across the street.
By then, "it was really smokey," and flames were starting to climb up the side of the house, she said.
Schwendeman banged on the door but didn't wait for an answer before barging in, yelling that the garage was on fire. She picked up an elderly man — she said he was the teenager's 88-year-old grandfather — and carried him to a car outside.
"I went back in, and by this time the windows were busting out," Schwendeman said.
"Then there were three explosions from the garage. The fire was like that," she said, snapping her fingers. "It was that fast."
Six family members escaped safely. When the family couldn't find the 17-year-old, "we told the Fire Department someone was in the house. But they couldn't find anybody," Schwendeman said.
Schwendeman and other neighbors, thinking the teen had escaped, spent frantic minutes searching nearby streets, calling his name. Family members later gathered in Schwendeman's home, where Fire Department officials told them the teen's remains were found after firefighters had knocked down the flames.
"They were all crying. They called me a hero, and I'm not. I could've got him out if I'd have known," said Schwendeman, who was overcome with grief and guilt. "They lost their son, they lost everything. I want to help them and I don't know how."
As of Tuesday afternoon, the cause of the fire was "undetermined pending autopsy results," said Dana Vander Houwen, a spokeswoman for the Seattle Fire Department. The teenager, who was identified by neighbors, has not been officially identified by the King County Medical Examiner's Office.
The family was too grief-stricken to speak to reporters. But another neighbor, Chho Collins, said the family, originally from Cambodia, moved into the two-story house about 16 years ago.
"They're a happy family," Collins said. "They play music together, always laughing and joking."
Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654
Even though Jackie Schwendeman helped six people escape a burning house in South Park on Monday night, she grieved the life she couldn't save.
The 17-year-old boy who lived across the street was the same age as her daughter, after all.
"I was able to get everybody out but one," she said Tuesday afternoon, tears sliding down her face as she peered out her window at the charred wreckage of her neighbors' garage in the 8800 block of Fifth Avenue South.
She moved outside and watched from her front porch as the boy's parents, accompanied by a monk in orange robes and a Seattle Fire Department chaplain, prayed beside a gurney holding the teen's remains, moments before it was loaded into a van.
Schwendeman offered up her own prayer, her eyes squeezed shut and her palms pressed together: "Just wrap your arms around them. Bring them some comfort and peace, I beg you." It was Schwendeman, 48, who saw smoke billowing from her neighbors' garage Monday night when she took her puppy outside for a walk. She ran back into her house, yelled for her daughter to call 911, and sprinted across the street.
By then, "it was really smokey," and flames were starting to climb up the side of the house, she said.
Schwendeman banged on the door but didn't wait for an answer before barging in, yelling that the garage was on fire. She picked up an elderly man — she said he was the teenager's 88-year-old grandfather — and carried him to a car outside.
"I went back in, and by this time the windows were busting out," Schwendeman said.
"Then there were three explosions from the garage. The fire was like that," she said, snapping her fingers. "It was that fast."
Six family members escaped safely. When the family couldn't find the 17-year-old, "we told the Fire Department someone was in the house. But they couldn't find anybody," Schwendeman said.
Schwendeman and other neighbors, thinking the teen had escaped, spent frantic minutes searching nearby streets, calling his name. Family members later gathered in Schwendeman's home, where Fire Department officials told them the teen's remains were found after firefighters had knocked down the flames.
"They were all crying. They called me a hero, and I'm not. I could've got him out if I'd have known," said Schwendeman, who was overcome with grief and guilt. "They lost their son, they lost everything. I want to help them and I don't know how."
As of Tuesday afternoon, the cause of the fire was "undetermined pending autopsy results," said Dana Vander Houwen, a spokeswoman for the Seattle Fire Department. The teenager, who was identified by neighbors, has not been officially identified by the King County Medical Examiner's Office.
The family was too grief-stricken to speak to reporters. But another neighbor, Chho Collins, said the family, originally from Cambodia, moved into the two-story house about 16 years ago.
"They're a happy family," Collins said. "They play music together, always laughing and joking."
Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654
6 comments:
My thoughts and prayers are with the family.
My the soul of the teen rest in peace with God.
Oh that is so sad to die too young. :(
My condole to the poor boy, he would be brightest Cambodian if he made it out of that accident.
I know these people.
Unfortunately... the deceased one was a good friend of mine. I'll miss him.
Oh man...may you be reborn to greatness and a more peacefull life.
My condole to the boy and his family. Not thing have pain then someone you love and gone forever.
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