A smoke alarm installed by Grand Rapids firefighters alerted neighbors to a house fire Sunday night.
“When the first crew went in to fight the fire, they found a female victim just inside the door,” Battalion Chief Scott Stevenson told WOOD reporters.
“Our crews pulled her out, began life-saving measures. She was not breathing and by the time she made it to the hospital, she was starting to improve,” he added.
Firefighters learned that a girl next door heard the smoke alarms sounding and told her grandfather.
The detectors had been installed by firefighters through a safety program.
“The last nine years, we put in 70,000 detectors in about 12,000 homes so that work from years ago paid off. I’d have to imagine if the neighbors hadn’t called as soon as they did we would have had a different result,” Stevenson said.
The fire is believed to have started in the kitchen.
