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Woman Dies, Baby Dropped From Window In Tampa Fire

News Channel 8 photo by JOHN WINTERROWD

One person died during an overnight blaze in South Tampa. Another resident had to drop a child out of a window in order to escape.

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By NEIL JOHNSON

njohnson@tampatrib.com

Published: March 22, 2009

Updated: 03/22/2009 03:08 pm

TAMPA - With flames licking at his back, Anthony Grace leaned out a second-story apartment window, a toddler slipping from his grip, and had little choice but to let the girl go and hope her uncle would catch her.

After 1-year-old Tiyana Samuel fell 10 feet into the arms of her uncle, Ryan Loflin, Grace picked up the girl's mother, Tiffany Loflin, 24, and dropped her into her brother's arms.

Pieces of the apartment's burning ceiling began falling on his shoulders, Grace, 20, jumped to the asphalt just as the first ambulance arrived at 3826 S. Himes Ave. where flames tore through two apartments above a restaurant this morning.

A woman in the apartment next to the one that Grace, the Loflins and two children escaped from died in the fire. The Tampa fire department has not identified the woman.

Just after 1 a.m., today, Grace woke up to the smell of something burning, the shouts of Ryan Loflin and the screams of the woman next door yelling Tiffany Loflin's name. A frantic five or six minutes followed that to Grace said felt like seconds.

"My heart was just racing," he said. "I was just worried about my friends' kids and getting everybody out safely. I wasn't really thinking about anything."

He made frantic trips to the sink to put water on the fire to buy time for Ryan Loflin and his 2-year-old, Raelyn, to get past the flames and escape. Ryan Loflin, 24, suffered burns to the bottom of his feet from kicking open the front door barefoot and carrying his daughter outside.

Kicking open the door caused pieces of burning ceiling to fall, blocking the last way out of the apartment.

"I just closed the door behind me and went to the back room," Grace said.
Grace retreated with the baby and Tiffany Loflin. After he opened windows, the smoke was a bit less thick there. The window was the only way out and there wasn't much time to think, only to react.

"Two minutes longer, it would have been real bad," he said.

Though people have mentioned the word, Grace doesn't see his actions as heroic.

"I don't really feel like a hero. I don't really feel like a superman. I just did what I had to do," he said.
Firefighters heard the woman screaming from her apartment window when they arrived and fought through the flames to find her unconscious on the bathroom floor. She was treated at the scene for burns and severe smoke inhalation but died later at Tampa General Hospital, Tampa Fire Rescue said.

The two apartments are above Potbellies Family Restaurant on the first floor.

The fire was under control in 30 minutes but the two apartments were heavily damaged. The restaurant received water damage, the fire department said. It was closed Sunday.

Investigators are continuing to seek the cause of the fire.
The unidentified woman is the second person to die in a Tampa fire this year, the fire department said.

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