As fire ravaged her Red Bird-area apartment early Sunday, Kimberly Butler struggled through smoke and flames to save her four young children.
She got Joshua Picot, 7, and Jamerie Picot, 2, out safely and told them to wait while she went back in for the other two, Joshay Picot, 7, and Jeremiah Butler, 4.
But it wasn’t until she got the other two out that she realized Jamerie had followed her back inside.
“I went back inside to save her, but it was too late,” said Ms. Butler, who moved to Dallas from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Firefighters found Jamerie dead in the master bathroom, hiding from the fire.
Her death was an accident, caused by smoke inhalation and thermal burns, according to the Dallas County medical examiner.
Dallas Fire-Rescue officials said the cause of the fire at the Cedar Ridge apartments near Interstate 20 and Highway 67 is still under investigation. About a dozen other residents were displaced.
Ms. Butler said she believes one of her children may have set the couch on fire trying to light a candle while she was in the bathroom.
About 1 a.m., one of her children pounded on the bathroom door of the apartment, in the 3900 block of Gannon Lane, to tell her the couch was in flames, she said.
Outside minutes later, after Ms. Butler realized her daughter was back inside the engulfed building, she turned to neighbors for help, some of them said Sunday.
Neighbor Sandra Jones said she was at a club down the street when her mother called to tell her what was going on.
“Police were frantic and all the neighbors were trying to get to the baby, but they couldn’t find her,” Ms. Jones said. “The smoke was too thick, and the heat was too intense.”
WestCoast911 -Â Source Dallasnews.com / Read Entire Article
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