Liz Trokey says it’s a lucky thing a fire that broke out at her senior apartment complex on Wednesday didn’t start any later than it did. “It was like an hour before my nap time,” she told CBS4. “If I had been napping, I never would have woke up, because when I take a nap, I’m out.” Trokey, 81, says the emergency stairs weren’t an option when the fire alarms started sounding in her apartment on the fourth floor of the Southview Place Towers. That’s where the fire started just before noon and quickly spread. “I’m just panicking, thinking ‘Omigod,'” said Trokey, who uses the elevator and can’t easily get up and down stairs. Instead, she quickly came up with a backup plan and headed for her balcony. “Someone below told me ‘Close your balcony door,’ which I did and it was a good thing because that smoke was just filling the apartment,” she said. Littleton’s emergency response to the fire included 12 fire trucks, 10 ambulances and 75 firefighters. One of those firefighters spotted Trokey and quickly got a ladder to that floor. Trokey says she told the firefighter “I’m not going down that ladder!”
“And he said ‘You are. You have to,'” she said.