One man died and 11 people were injured, 2 critically, Friday night when a fast-spreading extra-alarm fire roared through a Maywood apartment building. A child was thrown to safety from a second-floor window and two adults leaped from second-floor windows of the 3 1/2-story building at 306 N. 5th Ave. to escape the flames, and they survived, a hospital spokesman said.
Maywood firefighters rescued as many as 10 other residents by bringing them down on ladders, Maywood Fire Chief Dennis Hoffman said.
Neighbors said the fire began suddenly with a loud noise at the building`s rear. The first call to the Fire Department came at 6:45 p.m. ”It looks like it went up unusually fast,” Hoffman said. Firefighters from at least 10 suburbs helped fight the blaze.
Sgt. Dennis Ray of the Maywood police said police suspected arson as the cause of the blaze and were questioning a suspect late Friday.
A man with no identification was pronounced dead, apparently from burns, at Westlake Community Hospital, Melrose Park, a spokeswoman there said.
April Lewis, 34, and her daughter, Ophelia, 7, were listed in critical condition in Loyola University Medical Center, Maywood, suffering from smoke inhalation and burns, said Mike Maggio, spokesman for Loyola.
Eight residents of building and two Maywood firefighters, Guy Lentini, and Peter Genualdi, were taken to Gottlieb Memorial Hospital in Melrose Park, Gottlieb spokesman Peter Eget said.
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Genualdi was struck in the head by a piece of the roof when it caved in, and Lentini injured his ankle and knee, Hoffman said. Both were treated and released, Eget said.
Hector Lopez, 40, a resident of the apartment, had jumped from a second-floor window and suffered a spinal injury, Eget said. Lopez could move his limbs and was transferred to Northwestern Memorial Hospital where he was in fair condition.
Dinah Ross, 27, suffered a leg injury after jumping from the second floor into a blanket held by neighbors. Her son, Sydney, age 2 1/2, was thrown to the neighbors from the second floor and was uninjured, Eget said. Ross was treated and released.
The rest of the victims taken to to Gottlieb were treated and released, Eget said.
He identified them as Darius Oliver, 2 months; his sister, Jacquiline O`Neil, 1; their mother, Sabrina McMathis, 22; Claude Velton, 27; and Beverly Chapman, 34.
Eight Metra trains on the Chicago & North Western West line were delayed because of fire hoses stretched across the tracks, and more than 800 passengers had to be bused between the Maywood and Melrose Park stations, said Marla Karlin, Metra spokewoman. The trains were moving again by 10:30 p.m.
Hoffman said the fire appeared to have started in the rear of the apartment building, which had 28 units. The fire spread through a 3-story connecting corridor to the front section of the building on 5th Avenue, firefighters said.
Tony Sabler, 14, who lives nearby, said the fire began on the third floor. He said it began with ”a big loud noise.”
Saveina Tanner, 11, kicked the screen out of her apartment on the first floor and climbed out the window when smoke started coming in her apartment. She ran to get her mother at church around the corner.
”I just jumped up. I ran out of the church,” said the mother, Shirlene Jones. ”I put it in God`s hands. My main stuff is outside,” she said, referring to her four children. ”I can always replace that other stuff.”
Jones had picked up some blankets for the night from a temporary shelter for fire victims set up by the American Red Cross in the Maywood Park District recretation center.
Tom Aldworth, disaster supervisor for the Red Cross, said he was told as many as 80 people might have been left without a home by the blaze.