OKLAHOMA CITY -
A three-alarm fire at an Oklahoma City apartment complex during
the morning has left several families looking for a place to stay Saturday night.
Residents at the Tuscany Village Apartments on the Northwest
side of the city actually had to jump from windows and balconies to escape the
fire. Firefighters said they got the call around 11:40 a.m. When they arrived
at the scene, several units were already burning.
Resident Robert Lee Johnson, Jr. said he only had seconds to
get out of his apartment after the smoke detector woke him up.
"Smoke was in there so quick and
the fire was right at the door and the first I thought was ‘Just jump out the
balcony,'" he said.
Johnson's
girlfriend, Denise Singleton, was paying their rent when the building caught on
fire and she rushed back to the unit, which she said was completely engulfed.
"I was
running and crying just running and crying. I couldn't find him, you know, but
he called and said that he had jumped. He jumped!" she recalled.
7/7/12
Related Story: 3-Alarm Fire Extinguished At NW OKC Apartment Complex
Johnson
made the decision to jump from his second-story balcony to safety, but he was
not the only person who jumped for his life as the fire quickly spread from one
apartment to the next.
"A
neighbor, she ran and um, she knocked on all the doors and told those children
to get out so the children were jumping through the window and they were
catching them," said Singleton.
A
10-year-old was trapped inside his unit. Onlookers said the boy froze at a window
in fear, as they pleaded with him to jump out.
"He
was just so scared and that's why I just looked at him right in his eyes and
said, ‘Baby you gotta jump,' and so he did," said Shelby King.
The
boy finally got the courage to jump out and landed in King's arms.
The
fire destroyed virtually everything the three affected families had inside, but
they count their blessings knowing everyone made it out safely.
"We
continue to pray. We thank god because you know, Robert is safe today. It could
have been something else. What if he had not woken up," said Singleton.
There
was no official word on what sparked the fire on Saturday, but residents
thought it was electrical. They said work was recently done to fix the lighting
in their breezeway. That was where they said the heaviest flames were.
Oklahoma City Fire Deputy Chief
Marc Woodard said close to 50 firefighters battled
the fire in the hot weather. He said it was their hard work that kept the fire
from spreading throughout the complex.
The
American Red Cross was on hand to assist the families that lost their apartments
in the fire.
Residents at the Tuscany Village Apartments on the Northwest side of the city had to jump from windows and balconies to escape the fire.
