Final lawsuit over Marshall Square fire settled

Nov. 21--Irene Blickhan is very glad she listened to her daughter. If she hadn't more than three years ago, Blickhan likely wouldn't be around to celebrate another Thanksgiving.

In the early hours of June 2, 2015, Blickhan was awakened by the fire alarm at Marshall Square, the upscale senior living facility that had just opened in November 2014. She stuck her head out her apartment door and saw smoke billowing from the billiards room. Blickhan grabbed her walker and headed out of her room as her daughter, Janet Hooper, had insisted she do if the fire alarm sounded.

Blickhan was ignoring the Marshall Square instructions to "shelter in place," stay in her room if the fire alarm sounded. The night manager and the concierge were on the third floor right across from her room. They told her to go back to her apartment. She told them "no."

"They both looked stunned," Blickhan said.

The phone call in the middle of the night wasn't something Hooper and her husband, Mike, ever expected. They raced to Marshall Square.

"Yeah, that was scary, especially when we got there and there were 30 ambulances parked in front," Janet Hooper said.

Blickhan escaped with only her nightclothes, glasses, walker and cellphone. Her lawsuit was one of 14 filed in the months and year after the fire. It was settled for an undisclosed amount last month on the eve of trial.

Many of the lost items cannot be replaced -- wedding rings, the flag from her husband's funeral, her grandmother's antique mirror, a statue from the Black Forest.

"Lots of things couldn't be replaced," Blickhan said.

And then there were the daily needs -- personal identification was a complete headache to get replaced, Mike Hooper said. Blickhan and her daughter had tickets to fly to Buffalo, N.Y., but couldn't go because Blickhan didn't have any identification. And there were her hearing aides, a partial dental plate and more than $900 worth of monthly medications. The insurance wouldn't cover the loses, Janet Hooper said.

As part of the litigation, Blickhan was deposed by the other side. When asked why she thought she deserved to be compensated, Blickhan told the lawyer, "You burned my house down!" which is what each of the plaintiffs said independently, said attorney Titus Nichols.

It was a miracle that only one person died, Blickhan and her daughter and son-in-law agree. Dorothy Carpenter, 91, was killed in the fire. Rhetta Cadle, then 82, was trapped for seven hours in her apartment but survived. Both lived on the third floor as Blickhan did.

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