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Apartment Fire Claims Young Boy
January 8, 2017
A fire off Blue Angel Parkway Sunday morning has claimed the life of a young boy and sent two other people to the hospital.
The fire was reported shortly before 3 a.m. Sunday by an Escambia County Sheriff’s deputy who was responding an incident in the area and spotted the fire at the Stoddert Place Apartment complex.
The boy, Ozzy Goodman, 8, was badly burned. He was transported to Sacred Heart Hospital for his injuries, where he later died. Two adults were also taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation.
The affected apartment was occupied by two adults and four children, all of whom were sleeping upstairs. The fire is believed to have begun downstairs. The cause is being investigated.
Escambia County Fire Rescue was able to extinguish the fire, which was confined to one apartment in the 8-unit complex. Engine 14 from Pleasant Grove was the first unit on scene, arriving within seven minutes. Approximately 20 units responded to the incident including Escambia County Fire Rescue, Escambia County Emergency Medical Services, Navy Fire and Baldwin County Emergency Medical Services.
The Red Cross was called in to assist 19 residents displaced by the fire. The State Fire Marshal has been called in to investigate.
Editor’s note: This story originally stated four people were injured based upon a written release from Escambia County. The county has since revised the patient count to just three injured.
Comments
10 Responses to “Apartment Fire Claims Young Boy”
What a horrible tragedy.
The bad thing about this apartment design, is there is only one entrance/exit door for each of the 8 units(4 upper 4 lower). To enter each set (top and bottom), there are two doors on the ground level side by side. One door opens to the bottom apartment, the other door opens up to “private” steps leading up to the top apartment. If the fire started on the porch of the upper apartment, the only place for the flames to go was up the steps (the only way out) with the exception of breaking the windows on the top floor to escape. I thought there was some code these properties had to abide by for each unit to have at least 2 exits. There sure are codes for businesses, going so far as to tell an establishment they can only have so many seats for patrons inside a building due to their septic tank size.
This is truly a very sad situation and my heart is with the family I pray for their healing.
just looked at WEAR’s photos of the fire – and @Rr1969 … there is clearly a set of four meters visible on the wall.
one line goes into the box, is made up to a bus bar, which then splits the power evenly into four meters which are wired separately to the single units. which is exactly in line with building code. and these apartments are newer than the last revision to wiring code. in fact, these meters exceed the requirements of all code versions before Stoddert Place was built.
and it wasn’t the meters which caused the fire – there is no fire damage close to the meters at all.
What a tragedy I’m praying for everyone involved.
Rr1969, a CHILD HAS DIED, SOMEONE’S CHILD and you pick now to complain about the wiring? There are inspectors and inspection so why didn’t you say something to them. County commissioner, fire Marshall something before now. Let these folks grief without negative comments please.
@Rr1969
Not as a disagreement, just an observation of mine.
Friend of mine used to live in Stoddert Place, and “N’s” building had meters for every apartment. A billing issue we were talking about is the reason why I noticed that all four apartments on that side had meters, with the meters for the apartments on the other side being located on the opposite wall.
To your credit, I am unaware if the design of “N’s” building is different than the building which was affected.
If one of the meters were faulty and started throwing sparks, that would certainly
create the tragedy we see here.
The father, Justin, has been flown to Gainesville. He is fighting for his life also. He thought that Ozzy was already outside and when he realized he wasn’t-he went back in to save him. This is how he suffered the burns he has. Such a tragic story. We are all hoping and praying that Justin makes it. The family lost everything so hopefully there will be a GoFundMe account set up, or something where we can donate clothes and such. Please everyone, help in anyway you can, food, clothes, money- whatever you can do.
I am trying to get the clothes sizes right now so I can post it on here for everyone who would like to donate.
Everyone please continue to pray for this family.
Tragic. Could have been worse but for a Deputy in the right place to spot the fire.
That why you don’t use a single.power meter for an entire building. What a waste of resources having to put that many people up because of poor design. Should have 1 meter per apartment. Glad that everyone will survive and kuddos to the deputy for noticing the fire, otherwise would be a different story and outcome. I have been to that complex for several fires over the last 20 years.
Thank God for the Deputy noticing the fire since smoke rises. Those people are very lucky to be alive. I am sure those apartments have working smoke alarms.