A 59-year-old woman died Tuesday morning when a fire broke out in a three-story apartment building, neighbors and fire officials said.
Ann Davis was found in the kitchen of a second-floor apartment in the 2200 block of West 35th Street on the South Side, where the blaze is believed to have started shortly before 5:20 a.m., fire officials on the scene said. The fire, which swept through the building’s second and third floors, was put out shortly before 6 a.m.
Ruben Rojas, 27, and his wife, Mindy Martinez, 27, who live on the first floor, said they were awakened by their barking dog and immediately saw smoke billowing near the front door. They woke up four children in the residence, ranging in age from 1 to 15, and safely evacuated them.
A 25-year-old man who jumped out of a window to escape the fire was at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood on Tuesday night in critical condition.
Davis was known by residents as a sweet woman who was well-liked by neighborhood children for giving out candy.
“She was a God-fearing woman,” friend and neighbor Theresa Crawford said. Although Davis did not have any known living relatives, “she took me in as her family. … My kids loved her and they aren’t even going to understand that she’s gone,” Crawford said.
Davis was also a fixture at Sacred Heart Hospital’s Golden L.I.G.H.T. medical clinic on the West Side, where she went to socialize and get medical treatment, said Dr. James Caruso, her physician of more than seven years. “We became like her family. … She had a good sense of humor and even with all of the medical problems that she was dealing with, she always maintained a good perspective about life,” Caruso said.
Residents said an unknown man and an unknown woman were in Davis’ apartment at the time of the fire, but they may have fled the scene before fire crews arrived. “[Officials] said that it started off as a mattress fire. [The man and woman] were trying to put it out with water … and supposedly just left,” said Eddie Benitez, 26, who lives on the third floor and said he was among five others rescued by firefighters.
Detectives from the Chicago Police Department’s bomb and arson section and the fire department are investigating the blaze.
An autopsy will be performed Wednesday.
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