Family members mourning the death of a 75-year-old South Side woman killed in a weekend house fire are upset it took Chicago firefighters so long to find her body.
Firefighters were called to the fire at 6620 S. Aberdeen St. at 6:42 p.m. Saturday, Chicago Fire Department spokesman Josh Dennis said. About 100 firefighters and emergency personnel fought the blaze, which spread to the homes on either side of the house. The fire was put out by 8 p.m.
Firefighters discovered the body of Lillian McLin, who lived on the first floor of the 2 1/2-story home, about 9:45 p.m., Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said. Her body was not found until the third time firefighters searched the building because it was buried under so much debris, Langford said.
Family members said McLin’s 23-year-old grandniece, who lived in an upstairs apartment with her 1-year-old son and her mother, pleaded with firefighters to search for McLin, but they were assured that she had been transported to a hospital, said Gregory Clark, McLin’s nephew. Family members later learned it was a neighbor, not McLin, who had been rescued from the fire.
“She was still in the house,” said Clark, who added that family members saw firefighters enter the house several times during the fire. “How could you not find this woman’s body? She was wedged between the doorway and the bedroom, where the fire was.”
McLin was found in the stairwell leading to the second floor, Langford said.
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McLin was pronounced dead at 3:05 a.m. Sunday at the Stein Institute. An autopsy revealed that she died from carbon monoxide and a combination of smoke and soot inhalation. Her death was ruled an accident, a Cook County medical examiner’s office spokesman said.
Firefighters rescued one woman from the house. She was taken to St. Bernard Hospital and Health Care Center with injuries that were not life-threatening, Langford said. A Chicago police officer was taken to the University of Chicago Hospitals with chest pains, he added.
“Due to the heavy extent of the fire, they rescued one person out of [the house],” Dennis said. “They were able to search and clear the buildings on either side. It took a great deal of effort to put out the fire, and when they conducted their final searches, that’s when they found the victim.”
The cause of the fire is still under investigation. The Illinois state fire marshal and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will take part in the investigation because there was a death involved, Dennis said.
Family members said they believe the fire originated in McLin’s first-floor apartment and could have started in a space stove.
Representatives from Peoples Energy reconnected service to the home Wednesday and connected gas lines to most of the family’s appliances except for the space stove, Peoples spokeswoman Elizabeth Castro said. The gas had been shut off since June due to non-payment, she said. The space stove was missing a thermocouple, a heating element that ignites the pilot light. A Peoples Energy worker offered to fix the space stove and left a form indicating it was an unsafe appliance after the family declined to have it fixed, Castro said.
Lillian Clark, McLin’s niece and namesake, said McLin worked several days per week at a florist on the South Side.
“It’s a great loss,” Lillian Clark said. “She was a matriarch.”
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