Mpls teen dies after falling from fire escape

Blake Fannin was coming home to Uptown Minneapolis late at night when he saw an old fire escape and decided to climb three stories up.

But when the ladder separated from the side of the building and knocked him down, the 16-year-old Minneapolis boy suffered fatal injuries and couldn't be saved, his brother Eli Fannin said Thursday.

"The screws that were holding the ladder to the building ripped out of the side of the building," the teen's older brother Eli Fannin said. "The ladder basically fell backwards. When he hit the balcony on the third floor it knocked him loose."

The tragic accident happened at 2501 Girard Avenue South in Minneapolis just after midnight Sunday. Blake was hanging out with a friend who watched it all unfold from the bottom of the fire escape. He tried to save Blake and carried him across the street to his home and called an ambulance, Eli Fannin said.

A Minneapolis Fire Department report says the teen was breathing but unconscious when medics arrived. Blake was transported to Hennepin County Medical Center where he died.

"Everybody was horrified by this including myself," said Manly Zimmerman, one of the residents of the six-unit condo building. "Everybody wasn't there that Sunday afternoon. We all found out about it separately and we're dealing with it as a group."

The privately-owned structure was built over 100 years ago when the building code required fire escapes.

But City of Minneapolis fire inspection director Mike Rumppe said they're no longer mandatory because buildings have modernized and added sprinklers and fire alarms.

"We've got a number of buildings where fire escapes still exist on the outside of the building," he said. "But access to them as a means of egress is no longer required."

Rumppe visited the building where Blake fell Thursday afternoon. He said the fire escape was about six feet up from the ground and not easily accessible on the building's exterior without some help.

Blake was a passionate basketball player for the Minnesota Developmental Basketball program. He was going into junior year at Southwest High School in Minneapolis. Eli Fannin said his brother was compassionate and caring, he loved to connect with people of all different walks of life and he loved living in the Uptown area.

"I know that a lot of youth in the area like to do stuff like that and the fire escape was in terrible disrepair," he said. "We want to make sure that it doesn't happen again and we're concerned that it will happen again."

The city is not required to inspect building fire escapes and private buildings aren't required to remove them either.

"So you can imagine they're all just rusting away over time," Fannin said.

A scholarship fund has been created in Blake's name to allow "the less fortunate to play without the fees" according to the fundraising campaign page. A memorial service is planned for Saturday.