Mary A Brock & Christopher M Sutton Obit

Printed in The Oklahoman, January 17, 1998; page 8 & The Oklahoman, January 19, 1998; page 3

Fire Leaves Child Dead, Two Critical

By Diane Plumberg - staff writer

Toddlers often wake up before their parents. But Friday morning, that routine became deadly for one Oklahoma City Boy.

Bill Howard told a witness he heard 2-year old Chris Sutton get up from his bed, but he thought the child had gone back to sleep in the same room with his mother, Mary Brock, and his sister, Susie.

But Chris hadn't gone back to sleep. He had made his way to the living room in the back of the house about 9 a.m. and had found a long butane lighter like those used to light candles or fires in a fireplace. He crawled up on a couch and sparked the lighter, igniting his blanket.

Fire investigators said the flames spread from the blanket to the couch and then throughout the house at 937 N MacArthur Blvd. Chris got off the burning couch and climbed onto another couch where his body was later found with the lighter, Assistant Fire Chief Jon Hansen said.

Hansen said Howard awoke a few minutes after the fire started, smelled smoke and felt heat on his bedroom doorknob. He broke out the bedroom window and climbed out.

About that time, Sarah Leach drove by the house and noticed smoke coming from the roof.

"I saw a man coming out of the house in nothing but his pajamas. I asked him if he was OK and if there was anything I could do and he said there's a lady and two babies in there," Leach said.

Leach ran with Howard to the bedroom window where Brock and her daughter had been sleeping. Howard said Brock had been banging on the window, yelling for help. But by the time Leach reached the window, she had stopped pounding.

Howard smashed the window with a rock and was about to climb in when firefighters arrived, Leach said. Maj. Clayton Bell and Cpl. Steve York crawled into the home on their knees until they reached the bedroom. They lifted the mother and the 4-year-old out of the window.

Fire officials said Brock was not breathing, and Susie's breathing was sporadic. Paramedics revived Brock at the scene before taking her to Integris Baptist Medical Center, where she was listed in critical condition. She is two months pregnant.

Susie was taken to Children's Hospital of Oklahoma, where she was listed in critical condition after suffering slight burns and smoke inhalation.

"She looked like a rag doll, to be honest, and my first thoughts were prayers," Leach said.

"I wasn't a hero. The Bible says to help our fellow man>"

Hansen said firefighters tried to save the boy, but they couldn't find him. He said they experienced a "flashover" or "rollover" in which the flames climb up the wall over the ceiling and come down behind firefighters.

Brock and her two children were friends of Howard's son, Terry, who drove home from his work in far northwest Oklahoma City after authorities called him about the fire.

Chris' death is the first fire death of the year in Oklahoma City and could have been avoided, Hansen said, if a battery had been in the smoke detector.

"It's not a good way to start out the year," Hansen said.

"All fatalities bother you, but kids tend to rip your heart out. … We believe that had there been a functioning smoke detector, he would have been alive,"

City Woman Dies From Fire Injuries

By Robert Medley - staff writer

An Oklahoma city woman died Sunday from injuries suffered in a house fire that took the life of her 2-year-old son and left her 4-year-old daughter hospitalized.

Mary Brock, 26, died at Integris Baptist Medical Center at 1:40 p.m., spokesman Steve Lindley said. Brock was two months pregnant.

Brock suffered smoke inhalation in a fire that authorities believe started when her son, Chris Sutton, 2, was playing with a lighter Friday morning at 937 N MacArthur Blvd.

Chris died in the morning blaze.

Brock's daughter, Susie Sutton, was in serious condition at Children's Hospital of Oklahoma recovering from smoke inhalation Sunday, spokesman Jake Lowrey said.

Investigators discovered that the family did not have a battery in a smoke detector, Assistant Fire Chief Jon Hansen said.

The deaths are the first caused by fire in Oklahoma City this year.

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