Among the many tragic losses families have suffered amid the ongoing wildfires in Los Angeles County, an Altadena man’s stands out and he, like many others, are seeking accountability for the unimaginable catastrophe.
On Tuesday Jan. 7 when the Eaton Fire broke out, Jordan Mitchell was in the hospital fighting sepsis and a concussion suffered from a hard fall.
The primary caregiver for his 68-year-old father, Anthony, who lost a leg from diabetes and his 35-year-old brother Justin, who lived with cerebral palsy and was a paraplegic, Mitchell learned that his father called first responders for help evacuating that Tuesday.
“When he told me that he called for evacuation, I totally assumed that they would be taken care,” Mitchell told KTLA’s Mary Beth McDade.
Paramedics, however, didn’t arrive until early Wednesday morning just as fiery embers kicked up by hurricane force winds hit the family’s Altadena house, sparking a fire that consumed property and claimed the lives of both Anthony and Justin.
“A spark hit the house,” Mitchell told KTLA. “The people to evacuate them, the paramedics, they were at the corner when it happened, and they could not get in.”
As the fire raged, Mitchell’s father was on the phone with his aunt.
“My mother’s sister, she tried to go in, but they would not let her. She wanted to go in and try to get them herself,” he said.
His father fought until the very end, trying to get himself and his son Justin out of the home.
“He believed that they were going to get out of there. He was like, ‘Help me and help my son, help us.’ He was truly trying to make sure that he and my brother were out of this,” Mitchell said.
This tragedy comes just a year and a half after Mitchell lost his mother to early onset Alzheimer’s Disease. He said that his mother was the love of his father’s life.
“It’s been incredibly tough on me,” Mitchell added. “I’m trying my best every day.”
He explained that his brother was everything to him, that he always knew he’d be taking care of him and was focused on making sure Justin was safe and comfortable. His father, Mitchell recalled, was someone he cherished spending time with, a master at making ribs and someone who would fill the whole house with food.
Mitchell and his family are now considering joining one of the lawsuits filed against Southern California Edison that allege the utility company’s equipment was responsible for igniting the deadly blaze.
The suits claim SCE failed to take appropriate precautions despite the Eaton Canyon region being in an extreme fire-risk zone.
“There are several videos that you see out there that are on news agencies, Reddit, subreddits, that show the fire really from an electrical tower,” Caspar Jivalagain, an attorney with KJT Law Group, told KTLA. “We’ve also spoken to witnesses.”
Mitchell said that he’s among those who want answers from the utility company and wants to know why it took so long for first responders to get to his father’s call for help.
“He called that Tuesday afternoon, and they shouldn’t have been showing up at 6:30 the next day for two disabled adults,” he said.
Friends have organized a GoFundMe campaign to help Jordan as works to rebuild after the loss of father and brother and the family’s home.
