The woman who was rescued from an apartment complex fire in Rochester on Sunday has died.
Britney Marie Hehn, 31, was found unresponsive in the bathroom of a second-story apartment on Bend Street by firefighters doing a primary search of the burning building early Sunday morning.
“Firefighters believe she attempted to shelter inside the bathroom when fire conditions in the apartment became too intense,” Robert Scott, operations chief of West Thurston Regional Fire Authority, told The Chronicle on Monday.
He later added, “That's a common thing that we see or we've heard about with people in fires: If they can’t go out or escape, they're going to try to find the most secure place they can.”
Fire crews with West Thurston Regional Fire Authority, South Thurston Fire, East Olympia Fire, Riverside Regional Fire Authority and Grays Harbor Fire District 1 responded to a well-involved structure fire at 3:50 a.m. on Aug. 28. Responders were initially told the four-story apartment building they were working to extinguish was unoccupied.
Firefighters were able to immediately get Hehn outside while other crews worked to extinguish the fire.
“Luckily, we had enough crews there that night that while they were rescuing the victim, another crew was able to finish extinguishing the fire to keep it from getting any worse and to make it tenable so they could get the victim out of the bathroom,” Scott said.
Paramedics treated Hehn at the scene before she was transported to Providence St. Peter Hospital for further treatment.
She was placed on life support and ultimately died at the hospital, according to Hehn’s longtime partner, Arturek “AJ” Krzysztof Tilleman.
“When I called the hospital, I was talking to her so she could hear me because she was in a coma,” wrote Krzysztof Tilleman. “I talked to her for like 45 (minutes) and while I was saying my goodbyes, I told her ‘it's OK to let go, I will always love you,’ and that's when she passes.”
Krzysztof Tilleman started a GoFundMe fundraiser on Monday to fund Hehn’s burial: https://www.gofundme.com/f/britney-marie-hehn?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=email&utm_source=customer.
The cause of the fire was still under investigation as of Monday morning.
No other people were found inside of the building and no other injuries were reported in Sunday’s fire. However, a couple of cats perished and multiple families were displaced, according to the West Thurston Regional Fire Authority.
The property owner did have places for some of the displaced families to stay and others were referred to the Red Cross for aid, according to West Thurston.
