13 WTHRChild dies in Lawrence Township fire

Child dies in Lawrence Township fire

Chris Proffitt/Eyewitness News

Lawrence - Family members are mourning the loss of a five-year-old girl after fire tore through their house. But they're also praising neighbors after the dramatic rescue of a four-month-old child who was sleeping in the same home.

The fire broke out around midnight at the Cottages of Fall Creek near 56th Street just west of I-465.

The girl awoke just after midnight in her family's apartment to warn her sleeping mother of the fire. Within a matter of minutes, she was found dead by firefighters after hiding in a bathtub.

Four others in the apartment managed to escape.

"I'm so full of pain for her. It's one thing to lose your apartment - but to lose a child, there's just no words," said Regina Hollingsworth, neighbor.

The child's mother suffered second-degree burns from a fire that investigators believe was electrical and near a computer. Firefighters say an initial search for the child was hampered by the cluttered apartment.

The woman's 16-year-old daughter and her four-month-old baby were also in the apartment. Neighbors say the teenage girl, desperate and trapped upstairs, threw the baby out the window to a neighbor waiting below. Suffering burns to her arms and back, she then jumped to safety.

"Can you imagine that mother's fear to throw that four-month-old baby down the window to some people down below. I think they did catch her, certainly broke that child's fall. And then she jumped herself. Those actions certainly saved her own life and that infant's," said Lawrence Township Deputy Fire Chief Dick Groves.

The girl and her baby also suffered smoke inhalation in a tragedy that one neighbor said could have been prevented.

Fire investigators are still trying to determine whether the apartment had a working smoke detector.