One week after an early-morning house fire claimed the lives of five of her family members, a Decatur grandmother has died.
The DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office was notified of Diane Lay’s death Tuesday, an investigator confirmed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. County officials said Lay, 61, sustained second- and third-degree burns in the fire that also killed 30-year-old Terryona Regular, her daughters 6-year-old Aaliyah and 3-year-old Angel, and two uncles, 49-year-old Pedro Coney and 55-year-old Timothy Regular.
Lay, the matriarch of the family, owned the house on Janet Lane and brought up several of her relatives there, including grandsons Bonner and Bernard Ziglor. The brothers got a frantic phone call the morning of Dec. 14 and rushed to their childhood home, only to learn it was too late for four of the 10 people living there. A fifth was rushed to a hospital but didn’t make it.
Credit: Channel 2 Action News
Credit: Channel 2 Action News
Three others, including their grandmother, were injured. Only two people escaped unharmed.
“It’s tragic. Sad,” Bonner Ziglor said from outside the home last Tuesday. “We’re trying to make it through.”
Credit: Phil Skinner
Credit: Phil Skinner
The fire broke out around 12:20 a.m. According to a DeKalb fire spokesman, the first crews to arrive in the neighborhood off Glenwood Road did not know there were people trapped by the flames. The home was nearly fully engulfed, and they had to act fast.
Firefighters used a vent-enter-search strategy to quickly perform a preliminary search as other crew members established a water supply, fire Capt. Jaeson Daniels said. Ultimately, they were unable to save everyone.
Lay was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, where she died Tuesday morning, according to the medical examiner’s office. Her death comes as her family prepares to lay the five others to rest. A visitation is scheduled for Wednesday at the Gregory B. Levett and Sons chapel on Flat Shoals Parkway.
They will be buried Thursday following a noon funeral at Rainbow Park Baptist Church on Columbia Drive.
A GoFundMe account that was started to raise money for funeral expenses has netted more than $40,000.
Daniels said Tuesday investigators were unable to determine what started the fire, and it was not clear if the home had a working smoke detector. Last week, teams of firefighters went door to door to install detectors in neighboring homes.
Investigators do not believe the fire was criminal in nature, Daniels said.
DeKalb fire Chief Darnell Fullum said it was the 29th fire his crews had worked this month. Since then, crews have responded to five more working fires.
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