Elderly woman left dead after apartment fire in Roseville

(WJBK) - An elderly woman is now dead after an apartment fire that occurred Sunday evening around 5 p.m.

“I kept telling them there was a lady in the building,” said tenant Lachesha Cannon. “I told them and that lady died.” 

Cannon said the woman who died was elderly and in a wheelchair and she was unable to get out after flames overtook a building at the Macomb Manor Apartments in Roseville. 

“I was in my apartment building and I heard the little boy screaming, but as a mother you know when screaming is not right,” said Cannon. 

Cannon said it was the woman’s 4-year old grandson who alerted everyone to get out. 

“I ran over there and I said ‘baby what’s wrong?’ he said ‘my grandma, my grandma’. I said, ‘where is your grandma?’ and he said ‘fire, fire’,” Cannon said. 

Cannon called 911 while neighbors tried to help the elderly woman stuck inside. 

“She was screaming in there and another gentleman tried to go in and I told him not to go in there or else he would have died too,” said Cannon, 

“Flames were coming out of the first floor and they were coming over the balcony onto the second floor and up into the roof,” said Roseville Fire Batallion Chief, Todd Adams. 

Adams said the little boy was taken to the hospital to be treated. He is expected to be okay.

Everyone else also made it out safely. The management company is finding somewhere for the 8 displaced families to go. 

“There are 8 units in the building and they all have carrying degrees of damage,” said Adams. 

The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but Adams does not believe it was set intentionally.

If it wasn't for the child’s screams, other lives may have been lost. 

“I just feel so bad for him and for the family,” Cannon said.