Lance pulls elderly woman from burning apartment

By DUANE SHERRILL / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

Jessica Lance stands outside the Green Acres apartment from where she pulled her elderly neighbor Sunday morning. (Duane Sherrill photo)

A Green Acres woman ran into a burning apartment to save an elderly woman whose oxygen erupted into flames Sunday morning.

“You don’t have time to think about what you’re doing,” said hero Jessica Lance, 24, in explaining why she charged into the burning apartment around 9:30 a.m. Sunday. “When you see somebody on fire like that, you just do it.”

The victim, Mary Kennedy, 74, is under treatment at Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s burn unit for numerous burns to her body. Investigators believe the fire was sparked when Kennedy, who is on oxygen, tried to light a cigarette after pulling aside her breathing mask. The spark apparently ignited the oxygen and some of the furniture nearby.

“I was taking out the garbage when I heard the alarm going off in there,” Lance said, noting she lives above the woman at the apartment complex. “I looked in and saw a chair in flames, so I ran in and found her in the hallway. She looked so scared. I’ll never forget that look.”

Lance said she then pushed the injured woman in her wheelchair toward the door, bogging down a few times when it became stuck. Lance said she could feel the heat from the flames on her legs as she pushed by the blaze.

“The tank was still on fire and I was afraid it would blow up as we went by,” Lance said. “It would have blown off the whole front of the building if it’d went up.”

After getting the injured woman outside, Lance said she and other neighbors went about evacuating the block of buildings, which included her own upstairs apartment and children. Another neighbor charged into the burning apartment to put out the remaining fire with a fire extinguisher.

Lance suffered from smoke inhalation and was treated at River Park Hospital for several hours Sunday.

“I’m not a hero,” Lance said, while looking inside her neighbor’s fire-damaged apartment. “When you see someone in trouble like that, you have just got to help them.”

Lance said she is keeping up with Kennedy’s progress through the victim’s relatives, noting the victim was a good friend who she often visited.

“She’s a very nice lady,” Lance said. “I used to go down and talk and make her scrambled eggs. She loved those.”

Lance said she is pulling for her neighbor to recover from the serious burns and internal injuries suffered in the fire.

“It was real bad,” Lance said. “I’m just hoping she’s going to be OK.”