Indiana Firefighters Rescue Mom, Daughters from Apartment Fire

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) – A woman who was critically injured along with her two young daughters when fire swept through her Evansville apartment was being kept on life support Thursday until her organs could be donated after a coroner declared her brain dead.

Deputy Vanderburgh County Coroner Brian Claspell said 24-year-old Kristyn Frazier was declared brain dead at 7:44 a.m. Thursday.

Firefighters pulled her and her daughters Aaliyah , 4, and Akeleigh, 3, from a closet in an apartment in the Covert Villas shortly after 5 p.m. Tuesday, the Evansville Courier & Press (http://bit.ly/n7kPRK ) reported. Frazier’s husband, 29-year-old Duane Conner, escaped.

The girls remained in critical but stable condition Thursday, said St. Mary’s Medical Center spokesman Rick Peltier. Both girls were hooked up to ventilators, he said.

Howard said the fire started in the children’s bedroom in a second-floor apartment of the six-unit building. The fire remained under investigation Thursday.

Howard said no smoke detectors were found in the apartment. The apartment building’s owner, R&I Properties, is facing a $2,500 city fine as a result. A phone at the company rang unanswered Thursday.

“Every dwelling unit in the city is required to have a smoke detector in it,” Evansville Vanderburgh County Building Commissioner Ben Miller said Wednesday. “It is the tenant’s responsibility to maintain the smoke detector, but it is the landlord’s responsibility to install it.”

Miller said he expected the fine against R&I Properties to be filed next week. He added his office will take further action if the building is not structurally stable. R&I Properties will be responsible for the cost of that structural assessment. The fire caused extensive damage to the building and an adjacent building, said Fire Chief Keith Jarboe.

The fire displaced 12 people, the newspaper said.