Victims of fire at Severn group home are identified
Employee died trying to save a resident, investigators believe
As investigators work to determine the cause of a fatal fire Saturday at a group home in Severn, details are emerging about the three people who died.
Residents Walter McCardell III, 61, and William Garcia, 44, were identified Monday by the Anne Arundel County Fire Department as victims of the blaze, along with employee Barbara Brown, 65, of Brooklyn. Investigators believe Brown perished while trying to save Garcia.
Around 10:45 p.m. Saturday, firefighters responded to a call of a fire at the group home in the 7900 block of Stone Hearth Road. It took 45 firefighters more than an hour to put out the fire.
The single-family dwelling is owned by Arundel Lodge, a nonprofit that offers mental health and addiction treatment across the county. It operates 32 residential rehabilitation homes in Anne Arundel.
McCardell lived at the Arundel Lodge home for more than 10 years, said his siblings Paul McCardell and Carol Clemens.
He began suffering from schizophrenia in his 20s, and needed extra help, said Paul McCardell, a librarian for The Baltimore Sun. Family members said Walter McCardell loved coloring, dancing,. a cigarette with a good cup of coffee, and going out with his eight siblings to see baseball and games at the Navy stadium.
“Walter was one of few words, and William was one of few words too. He and Walter really looked after each other,” Clemens said. “They were one big family.”
Firefighters found McCardell inside the home Saturday and brought him outside, where they began performing CPR, said Capt. Russ Davies, a spokesman for the Anne Arundel County Fire Department. They could not revive him.
After discovering McCardell, firefighters went back in the house and found Garcia and Brown together. They also were pronounced dead at the scene.
The three are the first people to die from a fire in Anne Arundel County this year, Davies said. Four other residents were able to escape the blaze with no injuries.
Maggie Duppins, a neighbor, said she was watching television Saturday night with her husband, Dwight Duppins, 62, and son Jeremiah Huckaby, 29, when they heard a loud boom. She looked out the window, and saw the flames of the Arundel Lodge fire from 12 houses away.
She and her family immediately ran to the home. She said her husband and son went in before the fire department arrived.
After about five minutes, Duppins and Huckaby came out without being able to find anyone; the flames were too intense to stay inside. On the way out, they grabbed about 15 oxygen tanks that were sitting by the door, Duppins said.
Duppins said two other men from the neighborhood also attempted to rescue residents from the home before firefighters arrived.
“They asked people to yell if they were in there, but no one responded,” Duppins said.
Davies said investigators are interviewing residents of the home and witnesses to help determine the cause. Investigators from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Baltimore and ATF National Laboratory Center in Beltsville assisted county fire inspectors at the home Sunday. The home is a total loss, Davies said. In a statement Sunday from Arundel Lodge, Executive Director Mike Drummond said this was the first incident of its kind in the group’s 40-year history. Drummond did not respond to requests for comment Monday.