THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 23, 1994 TAG: 9406230420
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE MATHER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940623 LENGTH: VIRGINIA BEACH
The children of Bill and Becky Dozier perished in an upstairs bedroom of their home in the 3100 block of Choctaw Drive off Indian River Road. The only smoke detector in the home did not have a battery, a fire spokesman said.
{REST} ``I tried to get them, but I couldn't,'' said Rick Bush, 29, who lives with the Doziers. ``The hall was full of smoke and the door was hot. It was real dark, real black. We lost three children today.''
Dead are Jessica, 2, Samantha, 3, and Richard, 4.
Mike Wade, a Fire Department spokesman, said the children's bodies were found together in the bedroom. Their parents and Bush escaped without injury.
Firefighters passed the children's bodies through the second-story window and placed them under a white sheet on the front lawn, strewn with twisting fire hoses.
The firefighters battled the blaze during the attempted rescue as flames shot from the roof. Firefighters needed about an hour to control the blaze.
The parents, Bill, 26, and Becky, 22, were taken to Sentara Leigh Hospital suffering mental trauma, Wade said.
Fire officials have not determined the cause of the blaze that started about 9:30 a.m.
``I was right across the hall, half-asleep, half-awake,'' Bush said. ``I didn't smell the smoke until it was too late.''
Bush and at least three men and one woman joined in the rescue attempt before firefighters arrived.
David Benn, 23, and Nicole Wiley, 21, went through the front door and tried to run up the stairs. Wiley is a neighbor whom Benn and a friend, James Hickman, were visiting.
``The father was screaming, `My kids, my kids, save my kids,' '' said Benn, of Chesapeake. ``I tried to goupstairs, but the smoke was too thick.''
While Benn was in the house, Hickman, 20, and Glenn Murray, 29, scrambled onto the roof.
Witnesses said Murray, a passer-by from Portsmouth, kicked and clawed at the bedroom's bay window, cutting his hands. He said he saw the dead children huddled inside.
Hickman, of Chesapeake, said he pried loose a storm window and used it to smash through the bedroom window.
``A big puff of smoke poured out and into my face,'' Hickman said. He stumbled back, wiping his eyes, and fell from the roof.
Benn brought an aluminum ladder from the side yard and propped it against the roof. He climbed to the shattered bedroom window with a garden hose and began spraying the room.
``I tried to get in there, but I couldn't,'' Benn said. ``I could feel the heat. I just kept trying to get inside until the Fire Department arrived. I couldn't do anything. I felt so helpless.
``When the bodies were taken out, I kept thinking there must have been something else I could have done,'' said Benn, a manager at a nearby McDonald's.
Firefighters on hands and knees groped through the bedroom where the air was filled with swirling soot, until they found the three bodies.
There was no chance to revive the children, Wade said.
A Police Department chaplain quietly approached Murray, who was wandering listlessly through the tangle of yellow fire hoses.
``Bless your heart, buddy,'' the chaplain said, putting an arm around Murray. ``Bless your heart. We appreciate your efforts. You are quite a guy.''
The failed rescue took a mental toll on the other rescuers, too.
``I still can't get over it,'' Hickman said. ``I got up there, but I couldn't do anything. I felt so helpless. The smoke was so thick.''
Some neighbors cried as firefighters cleared the burned debris and children's toys from the bedroom.
Through the shattered window, firefighters threw scorched bedding, a blistered bunk bed, a partially melted pedal car, a singed four-foot, stuffed dinosaur and a soot-stained teddy bear.
Hours after the fire was extinguished, light gray smoke seeped from the roof. Firefighters stripped away the bleached gray shingles and blue siding to douse the smoldering embers.
The children's bodies were taken to the Norfolk crime lab for examination, police spokesman Mike Carey said. Wade, the fire spokesman, said investigators are working to determine how and where the fire started.
{KEYWORDS} FIRES FATALITIES
by CNB