Auburn fire kills 1; man saves boy's life

AUBURN — The sound of the smoke alarm split Jeremy Harder’s ears, but he could still hear screams from the apartment below.

The 20-year-old Auburn man’s first instinct was to run into the hallway and see if he could help. But when he opened the door, he found smoke so black it erased the hallway light.

At that moment he couldn’t know the fire would claim the life of 45-year-old Shawnee Hammer, the woman living downstairs. He couldn’t know it would leave her husband, Gene Hammer, also 45, fighting for his life in a Lincoln hospital.

At that moment, all Harder knew was that he had to get himself and 12-year-old Jayden Disher out. And he knew a second-floor window was the only way.

Harder woke the boy, the younger brother of a friend who was working a night shift 20 miles away in Tecumseh. He opened the window and punched out the screen.

Then he turned to Jayden.

“I told him, ‘You’re going to have to jump, but I’ll catch you.’”

Harder hit the frozen ground, stood up and saw flames engulfing the building’s external staircase.

He told Jayden it was time.

The boy went out backwards, holding onto the window frame, his belly to the wall as he slid down.

Harder caught him around the waist.

They felt heat as they ran away.

The next morning, he stood outside South Glen Apartments, 2301 Schneider Ave.,  and tried to make sense of what had happened. As it turns out, that’s more difficult than leading a 12-year-old boy out of a burning building.

“It was just panic and shock,” he said.

A Nebraska State Fire Marshal investigator sorted through the charred debris and embers Thursday in search of the fire’s cause, but reports were still being completed late in the day, said Nemaha County Attorney Louie Ligouri. A cause won’t be released until they are done and an autopsy can be completed on Hammer Friday in Omaha.

But the fire appears to have been accidental, Ligouri said.

He called it a sad day in Auburn, a community of 3,375 about 70 miles southeast of Lincoln, where he couldn’t recall another fatal fire in the 27 years he’s lived there.

Dan Kubr of Lincoln, who owns the six-year-old apartment building reserved for low-income tenants, said he was told the fire wasn’t caused by faulty wiring.

“It’s probably smoking-related,” Kubr said.

One of the building tenants apparently reported the fire at about 12:45 a.m. Thursday, Kubr said. He also was told that one of the residents was using a medical oxygen tank that may have played a role in the fire.

The county attorney confirmed Shawnee Hammer used oxygen. A friend of her husband’s said the woman was awaiting a lung transplant.

It appeared the fire started in the first-floor living room of the Hammer apartment, Ligouri said. He declined to speculate about whether the oxygen tank exploded.

Gene Hammer was listed in critical condition Thursday night at St. Elizabeth Regional Medical Center after suffering severe burns.

Three additional people were taken the hospital with nonlife-threatening injuries, according to the Nemaha County Sheriff’s Department. None was hospitalized.

Residents of the apartment building said all but one of the units was occupied, although they weren’t sure how many people were home at the time of the fire. The American Red Cross provided shelter for four families in a local hotel.

Kaci Jones, 24, the sister of Jayden Disher, said she has legal custody of the boy because of family problems. She called Harder a friend whom she had asked to stay with her brother while working  her sheriff’s dispatcher job in Tecumseh, about 20 miles west of Auburn.

Jones heard authorities talk about the fire on the police scanner she monitors. She waited an agonizing hour for another dispatcher to come in before she could leave.

As she waited, she called another friend who was staying in the building next door and had him check on the situation. She eventually learned that both Harder and her brother were OK.

“He saved my little brother’s life,” an emotional Jones said Thursday as she stood outside of the smoldering building.

She assumes she lost almost everything she owned in the fire. But she feels much worse for Gene Hammer, who she said always offered a kind greeting and seemed deeply devoted to his sick wife.

“He was so in love with her, you could tell,” she said. “I can’t imagine losing someone I care for that much.”

Randy Sikyta, whose son also lives in the building, said he has known Gene Hammer most of his life. Hammer worked at the former Auburn Consolidated Industries plant, which manufactured commercial lawn mowers before it closed last summer. He wasn’t sure if Hammer had found another job.

Both of the Hammers have adult children from previous marriages.

“He’s a real easygoing guy,” Sikyta said. “He would help anybody. He’s a just a good person.”

Residents of the apartment spent the morning trying to round up clothing and other necessities, a task made a little easier by assistance cards provided by the Red Cross.

It remained to be seen how soon they will be able to return to the building to salvage belongings. About noon Thursday, hotspots flared, prompting weary firefighters to come back and spray more water on what remained of the building.

As they did, thick, gray smoke seeped into the winter sky.

Reach Joe Duggan at 473-7239 or jduggan@journalstar.com.