Neighbors grateful to floor captain who helped top-floor residents escape Kenwood high-rise fire
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Two neighbors on Thursday shared a play-by-play of the intense moments form the fire that broke out in a high-rise in the Kenwood neighborhood the day before.
The fire at the Harper Square Cooperative, 4850 S. Lake Park Ave., left a woman dead and nine people injured. Flames climbed from the 15th floor where the fire started all the way up to the 24th floor – propelled by the wind.
CBS 2's Jermont Terry talked to neighbors Margaret Dorsey and Toi Sing-Daniels, who shared the terrifying moments of how they escaped the flames and made it out to safety – with each other's help.
Neighbors jumped in to help neighbors – and Sing-Daniels, a floor captain, is credited with saving everyone on the 25th floor as the fire inched closer to that top floor of the high-rise.
"We knew we were going to make it," said Sing-Daniels as she sat on a couch next to Dorsey. "We were like, we're getting out of here together."
"But you took care of us," Dorsey said.
The neighbors were taking a moment to reflect on their 25th-story scare.
"I'm so pleased with her," Dorsey said.
Dorsey credits her neighbor with saving her and everyone on the top floor of the Harper Square Cooperative.
"I feel like that's my God-given assignment," Sing-Daniels said. "This is my neighbor. That's what I'm supposed to do."
As the floor captain, Sing-Daniels kept Dorsey and others informed of the instructions from management and firefighters when the fire started 10 floors below. The order was to stay put.
Yet as time passed, staying put began to seem dangerous.
"I'm feeling trapped, because the flames are shooting up," Sing-Daniels said. "I'm looking at them - this is not a contained fire."
Dorsey could not see the fire from her apartment. Her first look came through a text from a family friend = which included video of the fire from outside.
Yet as the fire continued to rise closer to the top floor, the floor captain realized it was not safe to stay.
A friend on the ground passed the phone to a Chicago Fire Department commander, who gave Sing-Daniels an escape route while looking at building floor plans.
The instructions to evacuate, Sing-Daniels recalled, were: "This is what you do - do not take this. Go west, and then go up – and don't go down, because the smoke is not going to let you get past."
By that point, the fire was one floor below. Sing-Daniels followed orders and notified everyone on the floor.
"You banged on the door - you said, 'Roll out!'" Dorsey recalled to Sing-Daniels.
As she banged on doors, Sing-Daniels could barely see – as smoke had begun entering and darkening the hallways. The smoke also made it difficult to breathe.
"Your eyes burn. Your chest is burning. You're coughing. You feel like you're being suffocated," Sing-Daniels said.
"I just followed her voice," said Dorsey.
Sing-Daniels made sure to lead her neighbors up to the roof, where they safely crossed over to the next tower with firefighters.
"I'm grateful to be alive," Sing-Daniels said.
And once outside, Sing-Daniels saw the gravity of what they had all escaped.
"When we got downstairs, she fainted in her friend's arms," Dorsey said.
Now, the women are more than just neighbors after this ordeal.
"You're better together, when you have a neighborly spirit," Sing-Daniels said.
There is a story like Sing-Daniels' for each floor of the building. It is not clear when those living in the 133 units of the east tower of the co-op complex will get to gather their belongings, but they are supporting each other.
The Fire Department on Thursday pinpointed the cause of the fire to careless smoking – adding the unit where the woman died and the fire started did not have an operative smoke detector.
