Miracle on Bridge Street

The apartment fire at 705 Bridge Street Dec. 15 displaced nearly 20 Brighton residents. Though many lost all they had in the two-alarm fire, with the help of friends, neighbors and even strangers, two of the building’s families were able to find hope amidst the ashes.

Photo by Christine Hollister Manny Vasquez, left, and his neighbor, Julia, right, were two residents of an apartment building on Bridge Street that caught fire the night of Dec. 15. The two neighbors were helped after the fire by members of the Brighton community, including Pastor Donny and Tiffany Holcomb, pictured above, of Victory World Outreach church. Julia and her four children had just started attending VWO 8 months prior to the fire and had asked their neighbor, Manny, to join them just six months before the fire. They all believe a number of miracles happened the night of and in the days after the fire that allowed Manny and Julia and her children to be alive and well today.

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Julia’s story
    Late in the evening of Dec. 15, Julia (who prefers not to share her last name for the safety of her children) and her four children had just arrived home from church and were getting ready for bed.
    Julia, 35, and her kids, ages 15, 11, 8 and 6, were starting to put on their pj’s when one of her daughters started begging her to let the family sleep at Julia’s aunts house next door. The aunt had been on vacation and the kids missed her. Normally, Julia would not have heeded her daughter’s request, but this time, the pleading wore her down, she said.
    “My daughter just kept telling me and kept telling me that she wanted to sleep at my aunt’s house,” she said. “We were so tired, but we put on our pajamas and everybody went to my aunt’s house to sleep over.”
    Thirty minutes after Julia and her four children walked next door to her aunt’s house that cold December night, Julia’s daughter noticed the firefighters and police outside. There were often problems in their apartment building with fights, so they didn’t think much of it. But when more and more firefighters began showing up, they started to suspect it could be something much worse.
    “We knew something bad had happened,” Julia said. “We went to the back of my aunt’s house and saw our house was on fire.”
    Julia said she considers it a miracle that she and her family had not been in their apartment that night. They were all so tired, she said, she’s afraid that they wouldn’t have heard the warnings to get out of the building until it would have been too late.
    “I know if I would have fallen asleep in our apartment we wouldn’t have woken up to everything that was going on,” she said. “Thank God we weren’t there.
    “I believe that God was there,” she continued. “He was guiding us. He’s always been there for us.”
    Julia and her children moved to Brighton from California two years ago to get a fresh start. She remembers going back into the Bridge Street apartment for the first time after the fire and seeing nearly everything they owned ruined from water and smoke damage.
    “It was hard because you come from another state and with God’s help you build something and …” she stops, eyes filling up with tears.
    When the family went to the aunt’s house next door the evening of the fire, they were, of course, expecting to go back to their apartment next door in the morning. Therefore, they didn’t have anything with them other than the pajamas they were wearing. Julia had even left her purse in the house.
    “The kids weren’t even wearing shoes,” Julia said. “They were in their slippers.”
    The Brighton community quickly opened its arms to Julia’s family. A mother and daughter they didn’t know stopped by to bring them dinner. People have donated clothing and Brighton Cares is in the process of rounding up furniture for the family to have once they have a home or apartment. Julia’s co-workers at Wal-Mart also rallied around her, coming up with gift cards, gifts and food.
    “Everyone has helped me a lot,” she said. “They gave us Christmas gifts for the kids, left food for us. I feel that above all God has touched the hearts of many and taken care of us.”
    A huge part of the help she and her family have received has come from Victory World Outreach Church in Brighton. Julia and her family began attending the church about 8 months prior to the fire. She said she had walked past the church at 114 Strong Street a couple of times and noticed the sign.
    “One day I just went in,” she said. “Maybe a lot of people might not understand when you’re seeking the presence of the Lord what God is able to do in your life. When I was walking I found that church. He just directed me to where I needed to go.”
    Julia said she is extremely grateful for the help from other church members, as well as the church pastor, Donny Holcomb, and his wife, Tiffany.
    “She moved here from California to build her life again and all of a sudden everything was gone,” Donny said. “She’s such a blessing. Even though she’s in need, she’s still worried about everybody else. She goes above and beyond and would give you the shirt off her back. For this to happen to her, it hurt me.”
    What Julia and her children are most in need of now is housing. Julia and her two girls and two boys are now all living in one room in her aunt’s 2 bedroom house. Her aunt and uncle live in the other bedroom.
    Julia works full-time at the Brighton Wal-Mart and said she is able to afford reasonable rent on a house or apartment. She would like to rent a three-bedroom house or apartment in Brighton. She wants her children to be able to continue attending the same schools.
    Julia said she’s extremely grateful for the help of her community, church, school district and co-workers. 
    “It made me very happy,” she said. “Nowadays you never know how a person is going to react. A lot of people might see the news and see there’s a fire and click the channel. But when you go through it, you realize how that person is feeling and what it’s like to go through it.
    “They’ve helped me a lot and been there for us,” she added. “Anything we needed they’ve been there for us. I want to thank the people that donated to us. I know that I might not get to meet them, but I want them to know that I am grateful.”
    Her pastor was also amazed at how the community has surrounded Julia and her children.
    “People have blown my mind,” Donny said. “They really have. In this day and age when you think people don’t care, there are people that still care. It just proves that there are angels watching over us and God is here to help us.” 

Manny’s story
    Two floors above Julia’s apartment, Manny Vasquez was sound asleep the night of Dec. 15.
    Manny, 50, had lived in his one-bedroom third floor apartment at 705 Bridge Street for just over a year.
    “I was asleep and I woke up because I remember hearing some noise, someone outside was saying they smelled smoke,” he said. “I had already been inhaling the smoke. I didn’t even know how bad it was.”
    Manny ran down the stairs to try to make sure the kids in the building were safe and wanted to see if he could locate where the smoke was coming from and how bad it was. He wasn’t able to see anyone else or figure out where the fire had started, so he ran back up the stairs to his apartment.
    When he reached the top floor the smoke was so bad, he could no longer breathe.
    “I just couldn’t breathe,” he said. “I couldn’t take in enough air. I knew that if I breathed in one more breath inside that apartment, it was going to be my last breath. So I went to the nearest window and I jumped out. That’s the last thing I remember.”
    Manny said he felt like jumping out the window was the only way to get out of the smoke and into clear air. Manny said he has no idea how long he had been sleeping and breathing in the smoke before waking up that night.
    He spent Dec. 16 to Dec. 29 in the hospital—three of those days in the ICU. He had suffered a broken nose, busted lip and a fractured right wrist and broken right elbow from the three-story fall to the ground. But worst of all was the severe lung damage from the smoke inhalation. He was listed in critical condition and was not expected to live.
    “They didn’t know if I was going to make it,” Manny said. “But there were a lot of people praying for me.”
    All of Manny’s family flew in  from Arizona, and even though her own family was suffering from the same fire, Julia was there. So were Pastor Donny and Tiffany Holcomb. About six months before the fire, Julia asked Manny to go with her and her children to church at Victory World Outreach. Though he didn’t attend regularly at first, he quickly became a part of the church family.
    Pastor Donny said when he finally found out what hospital Manny had been taken to, he learned that his new friend was in bad shape.
    “When I called he was in critical condition,” Donny said. “He was just not looking good, he took in too much smoke. We prayed that night. The next morning he was coming out of it. He was no longer in critical condition.
    “I honestly with all of my heart believe it was a miracle without the shadow of a doubt,” Donny said. “He was out of it when we showed up. The next morning it was amazing.”
    “They’re awesome,” Manny said of Pastor Donny and his wife. “They were there and they prayed over me while I was out of it. I don’t remember.”
    After getting released from the hospital, Manny went back to the apartment to see if anything was salvageable. 
    “I thought, ‘It can’t be that bad,’” he said. “I just wanted to try to get some personal stuff. But there was no way. I went into the room and everything was charred. There was nothing left. I couldn’t get anything out of it.”
    Since the apartment building is no longer livable, Manny stayed for a time with his daughter and is now staying with a neighbor. The Red Cross helped Manny with his immediate needs for clothing and food. Like Julia, Manny is also looking for housing. He would like to find another one bedroom apartment in Brighton, he said. Another need he has is transportation, he said, to help him get to classes if he has to move too far away from where he goes to school.
    Manny is taking classes at Front Range Community College in Brighton for holistic medicine. He wants to own his own business one day.
    He said he can’t believe he didn’t break his legs after he landed on his feet from the three-story fall. In addition to going back to class, he also is looking forward to feeling better enough to go back to the Brighton Recreation Center to work out.
    Manny said he feels like he’s been given a second chance at life.
    “I thought that was my last breath, when I went out that window,” he said. “Before the fire I felt like I was all alone in the world. I was always depressed. Now I’m happy. I’ve seen all of the people who care for me. I just had all of that love thrown my way.”