20 Displaced After Early Morning Dallas Apartment Fire
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DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - One person was taken to the Burn Center at Parkland Hospital after flames ripped through an East Dallas apartment complex.
The 2-alarm fire at Casa Bella Apartments, near Peavey Road and Buckner Boulevard, was quickly extinguished but firefighters spent hours at the scene combing through the apartment where the fire broke out and dousing hot spots.
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Mother Kathy Alexander and her son Joseph live in the apartment above where the fire started. The pair say they barely made it out with their lives.
The cut to his hand and bump on his head remind Joseph of the quick escape that had to be made. "I'm lucky to be alive and my mom's alive," he said.
The teenager said it was around the same time he was waking up to the smell of smoke that his mother was on the phone with 911. The fire crept up the stairs as the Alexanders' grabbed what they could carry. Joseph said, "I started panicking. When I saw the flames come through the front door I thought 'how are we going to get out?' My mom was like, 'come to my room. We're going to go out the window.'"
The high school freshman broke the window and jumped down to the ground, with his mother, Kathy, right behind him. Joseph said there was no time to wait for a fire truck or ladder. "It was already too late. When we were jumping you could see the glass, the sliding door, it broke the glass and was coming in so we just jumped."
Kathy Alexander said everything was lost except for a treasured heirloom. "I read every day. It was my father's bible. He died 15 years ago," she explained while clutching the book. "So that gives me hope."
The identity of the person taken to Parkland isn't known, but officials say the individual was treated for smoke inhalation. Everyone else living in the eight unit building managed to escape unharmed.
Two of the units in the building have smoke and flame damage, another two received water damage. The Red Cross is assisting about 20 displaced apartment residents.
Investigators have ruled the blaze an accident after someone left food cooking, unattended, on the stove.
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