MILWAUKEE — The Milwaukee Fire Department is unsure how firefighters missed a body inside a burning home two weeks ago.
TMJ4.com reported firefighters responded to a house fire and rescued 99-year-old Lucy Mae Bowen from the flames.
“It was really bad. It was pitch-black, like midnight black inside and you could only see her feet hanging over the top of the stairs,” said Lamar Smith, one of two firefighters who broke a window and climbed into the burning home.
Once they got her out of the home, Smith asked Bowen if anyone else was inside.
“She was mumbling things. She told us no one else was inside the house,” said Smith.
Firefighters did not find anyone else in the home and were only alerted to the possibility that there may have been another person when Bowen’s family called the next day to ask where their grandson was.
Firefighters returned to the home and found his body covered in debris on the second floor.
“We are going to use that tragedy as a positive to focus education and looking at our standard operating procedures so we make sure something like that doesn’t happen again,” Milwaukee Fire Chief Mark Rohlfing said.
An investigation into the incident is underway.