11Alive.com - Lone Survivor of Motel Fire Critical
The family was found taking shelter in a bathroom. The surviving girl and her mother fell through the floor of the second floor bathroom. Five people died in this fire. They couldn't get out!
"(They) could not escape the room because their room door was stuck. The family had been using a bobby pin to open it and ended up trapped during the panic as the flames closed in on them.
"The door knob had broke about two weeks ago when we were getting ready to open it," Alma said. "It had fallen off. So my fiancé had put a safety pin in it so it could hold it. I asked the landlord to fix the door."
Alma said her daughter's fiancé frantically tried to call other residents from his cell phone for help, telling them they were stuck.
"I was angry. I'm angry now. I'm still angry," Alma said. "There's only one way in and one way out. They couldn't get out, nobody could get 'em from the bathroom. I know they knew that there's a possibility they wouldn't get out. They're stuck in the bathroom, in a tub. Five, six people. And all they could do was sit there and let it overtake them. No way out."
