“I panicked, believe me, I panicked. I sure did,” the homeowner said. “We were just trying to get the family out as fast as we could.”
HOUSTON — A 4-year-old is dead, and her mother is fighting for her life after being pulled from a house fire early Sunday morning in northwest Houston.
Editor’s note: Officials originally reported the child was 3 years old. KHOU 11 later learned the child was 4 years old.
The fire broke out around 3 a.m. at a home on Redding Springs Lane, which is just north of Fallbrook Drive.
The homeowner, Edward Rodriguez, told KHOU 11 his wife was out of the house when it caught fire, but he and other family members were there at the time, including their two sons, their daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren.
“I panicked, believe me, I panicked. I sure did,” Rodriguez said. “We were just trying to get the family out as fast as we could.”
One of their sons was in the shower when the fire broke out. When he was alerted to the fire, family said he rushed to get his 2-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter out of the house before going back inside to look for his wife and 4-year-old daughter. As he tried to reach them in an upstairs bedroom, smoke forced him out.
That’s when he grabbed a ladder and climbed up to an upstairs window with a water hose. He broke the window out, but burglar bars prevented him from getting his wife and the girl out, so he sprayed them down with water until firefighters arrived.
The Northwest Volunteer Fire Department said they got to the scene within five minutes of getting the call. They managed to cut through the burglar bars and found the woman and girl unresponsive. EMS performed CPR on the two as they rushed them to a hospital.
Sunday morning, the family told KHOU 11’s Michelle Choi the mother was fighting for her life in the burn unit.
They said the daughter flatlined at one point, but doctors were able to bring her back to life. On Sunday evening, the family told us the child had died.
The husband was also taken to a hospital, along with the 2- and 6-year-old children, as a precaution, but have since been released. No one else was hurt in the fire.
NWVFD said the fire was quickly knocked out. It’s believed it started as an electrical fire on the second story.
The family said the home was meant to be temporary housing after they lost their previous home in Hurricane Harvey. They’d been preparing to move again because of constant problems.
“It was just one thing after another,” one family member who did not live in the house said. “It was a domino effect.”
Officials said the burglar bars slowed down firefighters’ response. Brandi Dumas with the Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office said families should take burglar bars into consideration when coming up with an emergency plan.
“We want to make sure that we’re not trapping ourselves in whenever there is a fire,” Dumas said. “So, making sure that you have an escape plan, meaning a way out and knowing what to do if a fire does occur in your house.”
Watch the update officials gave at the scene:
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