Altadena resident Jordan Mitchell has recounted his father’s final words before he and his older brother, Justin, died in the Eaton Fire. His father, Anthony, a 67-year-old amputee, and Justin, who had cerebral palsy, were both wheelchair users and unable to escape their home when the wildfire consumed it on January 8, Jordan told KCAL News on January 15.
“No one deserves that, especially not my dad and brother,” Jordan told the outlet. “Best way I can describe my dad was funny and stubborn, but he loved us immensely,” he added of his late father. “Like, he woulda did anything for us.”
“My brother Justin was the happiest boy you ever met in your life,” Jordan added of his older brother.
Jordan said he was usually home to care for his father and brother but was in the hospital due to illness on the day the Eaton Fire claimed their lives.
“That’s my worst nightmare — that I wouldn’t be home, I wouldn’t be around them, and something would happen and someone [gets] hurt,” Jordan said.
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Jordan told KCAL that his father, Anthony, called 911 for help evacuating himself and his wheelchair-bound son, Justin, as the Eaton Fire spread. Unfortunately, no assistance arrived.
“His last words were ‘Help us,’ ” Jordan recalled. “He was trying to get him and my brother out of here.”
Jordan’s sister, Hajime White, told PEOPLE that she helplessly listened to one of their father’s final phone calls from her home in Arkansas as the Eaton Fire unfolded.
“He said, ‘Baby, I’m just letting you know that the fires broke out and that we’re going to have to evacuate,’” she told PEOPLE. “I was like, ‘Okay.’ He told me he loved me and started to say something else but he said, ‘Baby, I got to go. The fire just came in the yard.’”
White recalled receiving a call two hours after her father’s final phone call, confirming that both her father, Anthony, and brother, Justin, had died in the Eaton Fire.
“I lost it. I just started screaming,” she said.
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The wildfires, which began on January 7 in Pacific Palisades due to dry vegetation from a lack of rain, quickly spread across Los Angeles, fueled by severe winds.
