Protocols under review following Highland Park apartment blaze
HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) – The Detroit Fire commissioner is defending his crews' actions while helping Highland Park battle a fire on New Year's Day.
That fire destroyed a two-story apartment building on Tuxedo Street near the Lodge Freeway, leaving the victims with nothing but their lives.
"I'm living with the fact that I had to drop my children out a window to save them. That's something that's never going to leave me ever," said Sharon Mayhawk, one of the fire victims.
It's the most challenging choice Mayhawk says she's ever made.
"How do you explain to a one, three, and 5-year-old the severity of everything ...? How do you explain the mental toll that they're dealing with when they don't even understand their basic emotions at this time?"
She dropped after her husband, Brandon Lightsey, jumped out of their second-floor apartment.
"But at this point, we're just worried about some type of housing to where, you know, we can feel safe and just make sure that we, as a family, just try to mentally come together and calm ourselves down so that you know we can continue forward with life," Lightsey said.
While Detroit firefighters were the first to show up at the scene, they didn't stick around after Highland Park firefighters arrived.
"We're firefighters; we put a fire out. I don't care if it's on this street or that street; you put the fire out simple as that, and then we fight after the fact whose territory it was," said Highland Park Fire Chief Erik Hollowell.
Detroit Fire Commissioner Charles Simms said Wednesday the incident is under review.
"You know what? I'm going to tell you from my experience, just from the video, just from watching the video, it was really involved at that time with fire. And I don't know if that building was actually salvageable at that point," Simms said.
Simms and Hollowell met on Monday and agreed to tweak some protocols regarding mutual aid.
"The belief was, if it's not my city, we don't put the fire out until they call us. That makes no sense whatsoever. So that's being changed," Hollowell said.