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Woman, 73, dies after saving grandsons from fire
Nov 24, 2012
Doris Wilson
 
Doris Wilson

Doris Wilson lived for her two grandsons, taking them to and from school every day and then staying with them until their parents came home from work.

“They were her world,” her daughter-in-law, Tammie Wilson, said of the 73-year-old Redford resident. ”They were always her first concern.”

They were her first concern Tuesday when Doris Wilson, who had been staying with the boys at their home in Livonia, woke to the sound of smoke detectors going off at about 1 a.m.

Doris Wilson made sure both boys got out of the house safely, but wasn't able to make it out in time herself. She was possibly slowed down by a recent knee replacement surgery.

“She died to save them; she's their angel,” Tammie Wilson said, amid sobs.

All had been sleeping in separate second-story bedrooms when the fire broke out.

Doris Wilson woke Nicholas up first, telling him the house was on fire and to get out. At 14, he is the easier one to wake, his mother said. The Stevenson High School freshman grabbed a sweatshirt, covered his face, ran downstairs and grabbed a fire extinguisher to try to put the blaze out before running outside to neighbor Diane Reister's house. He beat on her front door and told her to call the fire department.

“He wanted to go back upstairs for Grandma and Michael, but he couldn't see anything,” his mother said.

Doris Wilson went to Michael's room next. “He heard Grandma yell, ‘Get out the window, get out the window,'” Tammie Wilson said.

Michael later told his mother, “Every breath I took, I thought it would be my last. My throat was burning.”

Seconds after the 12-year-old Holmes Middle School student climbed out the window onto the garage roof, the window shattered and flames shot through.

Doris Wilson was found deceased inside the bedroom.

Firefighters arrived as neighbors were trying to rescue Michael off the roof with a too-short ladder. Nicholas was outside on the grass.

The cause of fire is still being investigated, but it appears to have been accidental, Fire Inspector Dan Lee of the Livonia Fire Department said. It is believed to have started on the first floor of the colonial-style home.

Tammie Wilson and her husband, Paul, were in Disney World celebrating their 19th wedding anniversary when they got the call from Reister telling them to come home on the first plane they could catch. They touched down at 10:45 a.m. Tuesday, knowing only that their house had been on fire and the boys were safe.

Tammie wants readers to know how Doris, a breast cancer survivor who had been married 50 years to Alton, doted on her grandsons.

Nicholas was born after Doris lost her oldest child, Charles, to stomach cancer at age 30.

She was the kind of grandma who played Wii video games with them — and was good at it.

The boys recently told their mom that Grandma was one of the coolest people they knew.

“They loved her,” Tammie Wilson said. “She was one of their best friends.”

The home on Curtis, west of Wayne, suffered extensive damage in the fire. / Bill Bresler | staff photographer

ksmith@hometownlife.com (313) 222-2098


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IAFF Local 1164
14910 Farmington Rd.
Livonia, MI 48154
  7344662444

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