Mom, Kids Escape Burning Home On Detroit's East Side
DETROIT (WWJ) - Her home might have gone up in flames, but that's not going to take the smile off the face of this Detroit mother.
"Everything's OK. We're all still here," Tamika Singleton told WWJ's Mike Campbell Wednesday morning, grinning ear-to-ear.
Singleton said she and her three children were sleeping in their home on Longview Street, in an east side neighborhood near I-94 and Conner, when she woke up to the smell of smoke.
"I don't know, honest to God I don't know. All I smelled was the smoke. Me and my children were screaming and hollering," she said. "We scrambled for the keys to get out and we were crawling on the floor, and the neighbors across the street called for the fire department."
Singleton said she carried her 7-year-old son on her back, while her other two children, ages 9 and 14, helped each other out.
"I crawled on the floor, me and the baby, I put the baby on my back and we crawled out," she said. "My oldest son, he ran upstairs and got his middle brother, and when they got to the bottom of the steps it was engulfed in flames. And I told them, I said 'Just run as fast as you can.'"
Singleton, who called herself the 'Queen of Comeback,' was actually smiling ear-to-ear after the fire had died down.
"My nerves is really bad right now but I'm just thankful to God that we all made it out alive," she said. "That's all I can do."
Singleton praised the firefighters who got to her house almost immediately and extinguished the fire.
No injuries were reported.
