In Devastating Double-Blow, Man Loses Everything In Lodi Fire
LODI (CBS13) — Never have two words on a storefront window — "Hard Luck" — been so both fitting and cruel for Nicholas Lang.
Flames erupted early Saturday morning at the downtown Lodi apartment where he lived. He made it out thanks to his girlfriend who heard sirens and woke him up.
"If she hadn't and if the buildings hadn't been made of brick, I'd be dead right now," Lang said.
The same goes for his small dogs. He was able to rescue all five from the flames.
"I grabbed two of them, came out, grabbed two more, came out," he said.
Dog number five was then cornered and cradled, but as he made his way out, "I saw everything going up in smoke."
He realized he hadn't just lost where he lived, his livelihood was also gone.
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"The place where I work, I lost everything," Lang said.
The Hard Luck Tattoo Shop sits directly below where Lang laid his head every night. As his boos told CBS13 moments after the blaze, "it looks like it will be a total loss."
It's a phrase Lang now knows all too well.
"I don't even know where to go from here. I don't know what to do," he said.
The kindness of strangers is easing the devastating blow.
"I mean, people are being so generous. We got a GoFundMe, you know, people are donating and that's awesome," Lang said.
For Nicholas, help and any bit of good luck can't arrive soon enough.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation but Lang thinks it may have been started by transients living on the roof.