BROOK PARK, Ohio — Firefighters battled an intense blaze in Brook Park Friday on Smith Road. Several residents were displaced because of the fire.
Jeremy Demko saw a man trying to move an elderly woman from the thick smoke and intense heat and ran over to help her escape.
“She was in shock, she was in shock," Demko said. "She didn’t know what was going on. We told her there is so much smoke. We told her we need to get you out of here. So we moved her."
One resident of the home, who identified herself as Kendra, said she learned of the fire while on her way home while in the car with her mother.
“And my first thing [thought] was like, 'oh my god, like my dog.' And so my mom, she started speeding, but then we hit traffic over here, so I literally, I just opened the door and got out of the car, and I ran the rest of the way here," said Kendra,
She said that when she got to her home, she learned her 3-year-old German Shepherd named Dee Dee had perished in the fire.
"Literally everything, everything I owned was in that house, from, like, baby photos to all my clothes, my work clothes, anything that I had, that I did for fun, all my both of my pets are dead. I had a guinea pig in there, too, yeah. Literally, everything's gone. Everything,” Kendra said.
But for Danny Murphy, this home had extra special meaning.
“Me and my two brothers lived upstairs," Murphy said.
He called this place home for more than 30 years.
“Very sad. Sad enough, I wanted to cry. That's my childhood," said a tearful Murphy.
He said the home, which he passes by regularly, brings back memories of his father playing 8-tracks and his mother and the smell of her cooking. Murphy said he is glad his mother is not around to see this.
“She'd be devastated over that. That was everything to them,” Murphy said.
The Brook Park Fire Chief told News 5 that the cause is still under investigation.
