Upland News

LOGAN TWP . - The township woman shot in the head March 14 in her Barker Avenue home has been released from Crozer Chester Medical Center in Upland, Pa., police said.

A woman with a gunshot wound to the head was rushed to Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland, Pa.

Here is a list of recent incidents in Middletown and Edgmont townships reported by theA Pennsylvania State Police-Media Barracks .

A resident of the Birches Apartments on Fries Mill Road suffered burns to her hands and feet in a grease fire, Fire Department Chief John Hoffman said.

Nicole Roberts, 39, lay unconscious on her bedroom floor in Elsmere. Her daughter, 4-year-old Kiana, was passed out near her. The two had been holding hands before succumbing to the thick smoke filling their burning Silverbrook apartment. Before passing out, Nicole Roberts managed to call 911 and let them know she and Kiana were in the burning home. Elsmere patrolmen John Mitchell and Kevin Kerrigan were the first responders on the scene. They said they knew they had to 'get the people out.' 'It happened so fast,' said the 30-year-old Kerrigan, who went into the burning apartment first with nothing more than his flashlight. 'Your adrenaline kicks in and your training kind of takes over and you just do what you need to do at that point in time: get in there and get the two people out.' Kerrigan and the 30-year-old Mitchell entered the burning building before firefighters arrived the night of Feb. 24, pulling the mother and daughter to safety. Nicole and Kiana Roberts were initially taken to Christiana Hospital before being transferred to Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland, Pa., where they were treated for smoke inhalation. Kiana was released Sunday and is staying with her grandparents, James and Lovina Roberts. Nicole remains at Crozer. Her ventilator was removed Thursday, and she was expected to be taken into her own room soon, Lovina said. Nicole is a little hoarse when she speaks but is in good spirits, asking what happened and how her children are doing, Lovina said. 'I thank God,' said Lovina, adding she was thankful not only for her family's safety, but for that of her rescuers. 'We put him first and then he sent his angels -- the two policemen.' Mitchell and Kerrigan were treated for smoke inhalation but were soon released. A firefighter also suffered minor injuries. 'I just thank God that they are OK also,' Lovina said. The Delaware state Fire Marshal's Office determined the blaze started accidentally in the living room, sparked by discarded smoking materials. Among those who used the term 'heroic' to describe the actions of the two police officers are the firefighters who are usually the ones rushing into harm's way. 'Police did a fantastic job,' said Frank Maule, Elsmere Fire Company spokesman. 'For them to go in there and do what they did with no gear, no air pack, no protection of a hose line or anything, it's very heroic of them.' Yet neither Mitchell nor Kerrigan is comfortable with the title of hero. 'I don't really feel like a hero,' Mitchell said. 'I feel like this is just part of my job. This is what I signed up to do.' Feb. 24 was coming to an end like any other Friday night, said Lovina, who finished a phone conversation with Nicole at about 9:15 p.m. Sometime later, a fire started in the front of the apartment and spread toward the back bedroom, where Nicole and Kiana slept, according to James. Nicole's older daughter, Kiara, and Kiara's child were spending the night at an aunt's home. Realizing the apartment was on fire, Kiana woke her mother, Lovina said. Nicole called 911, then grabbed her daughter's hand and tried to leave the apartment. But the two became disoriented while trying to find the way out, eventually losing consciousness as smoke filled the room, according to family. At about 9:30 p.m., 911 dispatchers sent out a call about a fire at the Silverbrook Apartments. Mitchell, who was working traffic enforcement near McDonald's at 101 New Road, and Kerrigan, who was driving over the Del. 2 overpass toward the McDonald's, sped to the scene. Mitchell was first on the scene and could see flames and smoke through the apartment's front windows. 'As I'm running out of the car, our police dispatchers are advising there are possible subjects trapped inside the house,' said Mitchell, a seven-year veteran of the force. He was told they were in a bedroom. He opened the building's lobby door, but was pushed back by heat, flames and smoke. About then, Kerrigan pulled up and ran to the side of the building. Kerrigan, who's been on the force for four years, said he looked into a side window but could only see smoke and fire. He then ran to the back of the house. 'From coming to these houses so often, [I knew] the bedrooms were in the back and I knew that there was a door to go to the back,' Kerrigan said. He pulled the glass storm door open and was relieved to see that the main door was open -- not that it would have mattered. 'One way or another, that door would have gotten opened,' he said. He was immediately hit by a wall of smoke. Holding his flashlight, he groped his way into the bedroom. 'It's pretty disgusting. It's just the thickest, darkest smoke that you can possibly imagine,' Kerrigan said. 'Immediately, mucus builds up and you start tearing up.' Kerrigan found Nicole, and he and Mitchell, who had followed him in, pulled her out to the building's landing. Remembering the dispatcher had said there were two people trapped, Kerrigan went back in. 'I figured once the adult was at least out to the landing -- so she wasn't breathing in the smoke anymore -- I figured I'd peek in again,' he said. He found Kiana next to where her mother had been, and pulled the girl out. He called for Mitchell and handed Kiana to him. Mitchell carried her down the stairs, taking her into the backyard as far from the building as he could. He put her on the ground and started rubbing her chest. 'She started to cough a little bit. Then a couple of seconds later, she started to get her breath a little bit and she came up and started crying,' Mitchell said. 'It was the best feeling in the world.' Mitchell told Kiana to stay put and ran back to the landing where Kerrigan was yelling for help with Nicole. They both grabbed her and carried her down the narrow stairs away from the house. Nicole was in and out of consciousness and going into shock, Mitchell said, but she was able to tell them that no one else was in the house. Mitchell remained humble. 'We went into the house, we did what we had to do,' he said, adding there was some concern for his and his partner's safety. 'But my main concern was always getting to the victims and getting them out.' Lovina said she got a call at about 12:20 a.m. Feb. 25 from Christiana Hospital letting her know about the fire. She and her husband rushed to the hospital, unsure what to expect. 'Everything goes through your mind,' James said. 'Because when they send you to Crozer, we thought it was probably bad.' 'Was she still living?' Lovina remembers wondering. 'Things like that, you know. Because hours had passed by and we didn't know anything.' When the Robertses arrived, they found Kiana there, still covered in soot. They were told they needed to transfer her to Crozer, where Nicole had already been taken. 'I wanted to cry, but I didn't want to do it in front of her,' Lovina said, referring to Kiana, who was telling her grandmother: 'It was a fire. Hold my hand and please don't leave me.' Lovina said she traveled in the ambulance with her granddaughter, while her husband and son followed them up Interstate 95. The mother and daughter were placed in the same room, but divided by a partition. 'My granddaughter could not see her mom,' Lovina said. 'So I had my daughter on one side, my granddaughter on the other, and I just stayed there all night with them.' Both Lovina and James said they went to the police station earlier in the week hoping to personally thank both Mitchell and Kerrigan, but they went when the officers weren't in. Lovina and James said they've been thankful for all the help they have received, including clothing from AAA, where James' sister works, and two churches that have been offering prayers and donations for Nicole and her daughters. Friends, aunts, uncles, siblings and other family members also have offered clothing, food and other support. Maule said the officers worked quickly, rescuing the pair in the three minutes it took for firefighters to arrive at the scene. Kerrigan thought it took about four minutes, but 'it seemed like four hours.' 'I hate to say it this way, but sometimes it takes something like this for the public to really appreciate what they have in public safety in this county and this state,' Maule said, referring also to New Castle County Police Officers Keith Sydnor and Thomas Ford, who three days before the Elsmere fire rescued a 69-year-old man who had fallen while trying to escape his burning home near New Castle. 'Everybody is always going on about the police that they don't do enough ... and then something like this [happens], and this shows the public what they have when something like this goes down,' Maule said.