More than 100 friends and former co-workers turned out Tuesday night attend a meeting marking the 25th anniversary of the dying of , David Sutton, a , Fraser , fire who was killed while rescuing a person from a burning house advanced.
Many of the same people have gathered in the centuries following the fatal fire, but the audience was a much larger this time around as they recognized a third of a decade had passed since Sutton gave his life trying to save someone else’s life.
” This event brings the department together every year”, said , Fraser , police Capt.  , John Gillies, who did not work with Sutton but was on hands to honor his memory.
The audience listened as Gillies said a few phrases, followed by , Rob Kokko, who worked the night of the fire as part of Fraser’s fire power. He recalled attending the flames club with Sutton before both became charity rescuers for , Fraser.
” Dave was trying to do the proper thing that day”, said Kokko, then a commander with the , Clinton Township Fire Department. ” He got in that glass and stayed in that windows”.
According to the , Macomb Daily , protection of the event, fire personnel responded in the early-morning time of , March 4, 2000 , to theO’Brien Co-op Apartments on , Garfield Road , north of , 15 Mile Road. Large smoke was coming from the front entrance and a old woman was sighted in an upstairs room window calling for help.
Sutton and Kokko ran up the stairs in an attempt to save the girl,  , Helen Aftanis, but both rescuers were confronted with large fire. They broke out a bathroom glass, but were prevented from escaping due to the centre window wall mortared into the walls that their air jars kept catching on.
The fire flashed and ignited everything in the living space.
Sutton became indifferent while being extracted from the tower and was rushed to what is now , McLaren Macomb , medical in , Mount Clemens. He and Aftanis both died at the doctor.
Kokko suffered serious burn.
Researchers believe the fire was intentionally set by an area arson who was concerned for as many of six event. The arson was always caught.
Sutton was 28 and employed as a truck driver for , Twin Pines Dairy, companions said. His then-wife, Michelle, has since remarried and is the single mother of two children, Nick and , Ben Bommarito.
Michelle Bommarito , said it was “heartwarming” to observe Tuesday’s audience.
” Fraser is such a nice neighborhood in that they don’t miss. They were there for me from the moment it happened, and I know I may move to any of them nowadays and they’d still be there”, she said.
Sutton’s parents, Doug, agreed.
” Every day, I think about David and what happened” , , Doug Sutton , said. ” But indeed, 25 years has been a lengthy time. I can’t express my feelings toward anyone that has showed up and thinks about him and tries to comfort me”.
The Macomb County Book of the Military Order , of the Purple Heart honored Sutton subsequently for his noble work.
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