Altadena family says disabled father and son were left to burn: ‘Nobody was coming’
Jan. 10, 2025
Anthony Mitchell Sr., an amputee who used a wheelchair, and his son Justin, who had cerebral palsy, died due to slow evacuation efforts during the Altadena fire, relatives said Friday.
The last thing Anthony Mitchell Sr. told his eldest son was that he was still waiting for an ambulance as the swiftly moving Eaton fire bore down on his Altadena home.
“He called everybody and said ‘I’m OK, I’m just waiting to be evacuated,’” the junior Mitchell said of their 5 a.m. phone call. “He probably knew nobody was coming, but he wanted to keep everybody at ease.”
The great-grandfather and Mitchell family patriarch was an amputee who used a wheelchair. His son Justin Mitchell had cerebral palsy and needed help to get out of bed. They couldn’t escape on their own, and relatives said firefighters stopped them from entering the evacuation zone.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-10/altadena-fire-deaths-disabled-victims