Family recovering after fire

  • Published
  • By Amy Welch
  • Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center Public Affairs
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. (AFPN) --  A Tinker airman deployed to Iraq is home helping nurse his family to health after a fire recently destroyed their home.

The 2-year-old daughter of Staff Sgt. Steven Mitchell, a power production chief with the 34th Combat Communications Squadron, was the most seriously injured. She had first- and second-degree burns on her arms, chest, stomach, legs, hands and face, and smoke caused carbon-monoxide poisoning in her lungs.

Tonya Mitchell, Steven's wife, said she woke up around 2:15 a.m. to the inferno in her Midwest City, Okla., home.

"I knew I had left the air conditioner on, but I was so hot," she said. "I opened my eyes, and it was real hazy, and I thought, 'What the heck is going on?' I got up and looked down the hall, and all I saw was orange. There was nothing but fire."

With the smoke detectors inexplicably silent, Mitchell said she and her 11-year-old son, Mathew, ran downstairs to get her two other children and visiting mother and grandmother out of the house. She grabbed the cordless telephone along the way. In a mad rush to get everyone out and call 9-1-1, Mitchell realized 2-year-old Maddie was not with them.

Though the operator told Mitchell firefighters were on their way, she said it was not soon enough for a mother who desperately wanted her baby.

"I grabbed a towel and was ready to go back in and grab Maddie, but right as I grabbed the towel, the front door burst into flames," she said.

She then went to the back of the house, to Maddie's bedroom, only to find flames already burning the toddler's skin, she said.

"I broke out the window and drug her out," Mitchell said, who used her bare hands.

By the time she reached the front of the house carrying Maddie, firefighters and paramedics had arrived.

Though her grandmother and her son, Mason, suffered from burns and smoke inhalation, Maddie was hurt the worst.

Meanwhile, Steven was sitting in a tent in Iraq when a co-worker told him to call the squadron right away.

"He wouldn't tell me why, just that I had to call home immediately," he said.

From the time the father found out his little girl was in intensive care at a children's hospital until the time he landed in Oklahoma City, 44 hours passed.

"It was pure hell," he said. "When you're just waiting and not knowing exactly what's going on, it's hard to bear."

And he said walking in the hospital and seeing Maddie proved even more difficult.

"It's a sad thing when you're looking at your own child in that condition," the sergeant said. "It's just a real sick feeling."

The hospital released Maddie three days later, but she continues to go to the burn unit twice a week. Her mother is impressed with the quick recovery.

"As soon as she could get up from (the intensive care unit), she was running around playing, and I was chasing her with an IV pole," the mother said. "I was relieved because I know how important it is in the healing process for children to return to their normal routines as soon as possible."

The Mitchells said the continued support of friends, specifically airmen of the 3rd Combat Communications Group, the family support center and other organizations, helped the family cope -- especially since the Mitchells did not have renter's insurance.

"It's a lesson learned," Mitchell said. "It will definitely be our first priority in our new house. Now we know that, yes, it can happen to you."

Besides helping the Mitchells out with clothing, appliances, furniture, toys, monetary donations and find a temporary place to live, 3rd CCG airmen helped with the ultimate chore -- moving. The family found another house, complete with a fire-detecting alarm system.

"We've been overwhelmed with the caring and the love that's been shown to us," Mitchell said. "It's just been unbelievable, and we're very lucky to be associated with such a great group."

From the charred remains of the home, a neighbor removed what the Mitchells call a sign from God. Other than smelling faintly of smoke, the family Bible showed no sign of damage. The Mitchells say the book sat atop a wooden coffee table that was reduced to shards of wood and ashes.

"I think that's a sign," Steven said. "It's a blessing that nobody in the house was killed."

Tonya said the book's survival and her family's near-death experience amaze her.

"The fireman told me that the temperature inside that house was more than 1,000 degrees," she said. "There's no way any of us should be standing." (Courtesy of Air Force Materiel Command News Service)