HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. – It’s a choice most parents couldn’t imagine having to make. A Highland Park couple had to make the split-second call on New Year’s Day to toss their children out of a window to escape a fire.
The fire left them with nothing. They lost everything they have but each other. It was a brutal start to the new year for Brandon and Sharon Lightsey.
Brandon Lightsey is recovering from a broken foot suffered when he jumped out of a second-story window of their Highland Park apartment building last week when the fire broke out. Brandon didn’t jump to save his life; he jumped so he could catch his three children , ages 5, 3, and 1, who were tossed out of a window by his wife, Sharon. With the smoke and fire closing in, there was no other choice.
“My intention was to not let them hit the ground,” Brandon said. “I grabbed them out of the air.”
And then Brandon broke the fall of Sharon, who also had to make that jump.
It was the fire the Detroit Fire Department has now launched an internal investigation into. People want to know why a Detroit fire chief would order his crew, who had water on the fire, to take that water off the fire, wrap up and leave with the fire still raging.
The Detroit Fire Department said it has no obligation to fight fires in Highland Park, and more water from Highland Park firefighters was on the way.
Everything the family had -- from IDs to eyeglasses, clothing, car keys -- all burned. The same happened with Brandon’s sister’s belongings -- she lived on the ground floor.
“If it wasn’t for my husband, we all would have been in that house dead,” Sharon said.
A GoFundMe has been set up for the family. You can donate here.
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