Children crushed by debris when stairwell collapses

July 17, 2008, 12:48PM
Children crushed by debris when stairwell collapses
2 die and another is injured in southwest Houston


By RUTH RENDON and JENNIFER LATSON
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

The southwest Houston apartment complex where two children died and another was injured late Wednesday in the collapse of a stairway had not undergone a city inspection in 12 years, according to records.

As three city inspectors examined the site today at the Westwood Fountains apartments, security guards shooed the news media off the property and the management office remained locked, with the blinds drawn.

Phone calls to the office were not answered.

Residents, however, came to the site of the collapse to look at the wreckage and recall the horror of the previous night, when two young boys were crushed while playing on a staircase that was supposed to have been locked.

Tacatta Spears, who lives near the family of a boy who died, said one of the boys screamed, "Help me! My back! My back hurts!" as men worked to free him from the broken concrete.

The bodies of the two boys who were killed, ages 4 and 10, were removed about 1:30 a.m. after the area had been secured enough for workers to move the wreckage, Assistant Fire Chief Omero Longoria said this morning.

A 9-year-old boy is at Texas Children's Hospital, being treated for injuries including an apparent broken leg.

The three were playing in a three-story outdoor stairwell, which Westwood Fountains residents say was corroded and rarely used, when the concrete landings groaned loose and slammed down on the boys about 7:40 p.m.
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