911 Call Comes Too Late : Emergency: Death of woman in fire might have been prevented if someone had summoned help earlier, officials say. Two people smelled smoke.

BUENA PARK —  A 57-year-old live-in caretaker died in a smoldering fire early Thursday, and authorities said the death might have been prevented if someone had called 911 sooner.

At least two people had smelled the smoke about 4 a.m. from the fire that killed Lucy Lee Holly in her upstairs bedroom.

But no one dialed 911 for half an hour--until after the homeowner’s son-in-law arrived and tried to evacuate the house in the 5400 block of Cajon Avenue on his own, Orange County Fire Authority spokeswoman Emmy Day said.

“This woman probably wouldn’t have died if certain things were done properly,” Day said. “I don’t want to scream and yell at any of the people involved in this. I know they’ve got enough to grieve about.

“I do want to scream and yell at the people out there to use 911. We’ve got it set up so that you can use it.”

Holly, a caretaker living with Rose Marx, 85, was sleeping with the door and windows of her bedroom shut when a candle left burning on a vanity dresser caused a fire to smolder, Day said.

A neighbor and Marx, who was watching television downstairs, both smelled smoke but neither called 911, firefighters said.

“The neighbor assumed someone else would,” Day said, “and [Marx] called her son-in-law, who also didn’t call 911.”

Marx went upstairs to check on Holly, but didn’t get a response from her and returned downstairs without alerting the Fire Department, said Buena Park Police Lt. Robert Chaney.

The son-in-law, Don Stewart, drove to Marx’s house and tried rescuing Holly when he encountered smoke billowing from the bedroom, Chaney said.

Stewart told investigators he then helped his mother-in-law out of the condominium before calling the Fire Department for help at 4:30 a.m., Chaney said.

“It was frantic,” Stewart said Thursday. “There was a lot of excitement. I tried to open the door to the bedroom but ran into a blank wall of smoke. I burned my throat, so I went back downstairs. There was no way that I could have gone in that room.”

A police officer who arrived at the scene after Stewart called 911 also tried to rescue the caretaker, but failed.

“I knew I had made the right decision,” Stewart said.

He added that Holly had taken care of his father-in-law who had Parkinson’s disease and died about three years ago. After that, Holly took care of Marx.

“She was a friend,” Stewart said. “It was a loss for us. She really took care of my mother-in-law.”

Firefighters discovered Holly lying unconscious on the floor of her bedroom, with her feet inches from the door. She was taken to Martin Luther Hospital in Anaheim, where she died.

“In situations like this, seconds can mean a lifetime,” Day said.

No smoke detectors were installed near the bedroom, another factor that might have made a difference between life and death, Day said.

The death marks the second time in as many months that a delay in calling 911 may have hampered rescue efforts.

In July, a Mission Viejo man who found his child unconscious in a bathtub drove the girl to the fire station instead of calling 911. Paramedics tried to revive the child but were unsuccessful. The girl later died at the hospital.

Firefighters urged the public Thursday to devise emergency plans for their families and learn to correctly use the 911 system.

“You have to think ahead of time about what may happen so that when something comes up, you’re not moving at a gut level,” Day said. “It can save lives.”

About 35 firefighters took 20 minutes to control the fire, which caused $15,000 in damages, mostly to the bedroom, Day said.