Woman Speaks Out After Amputee Father and Brother with Cerebral Palsy Died in L.A. Fires: 'Where Was Everyone?

Mar. 15, 2025

Anthony Mitchell.Photo:Hajime White

Hajime White

Hajime White was logging onto her work computer at 8:10 a.m. central time on Wednesday, Jan. 8, when her father called from California and told her he had to evacuate amid thedevastating wildfires.

But that was going to be difficult.Anthony Mitchell, a 67-year-old amputee, was alone in his Altadena home with his son, Justin Mitchell, who has cerebral palsy. Both men were wheelchair-bound.

That was the last thing she heard before he hung up the phone.

“It was scary,” saysWhite, a 50-year-old doula in Warren, Ark. “I’m like, ‘Dad, just get ready to get out.’ And I’m thinking he might’ve had enough time.”

After her father hung up, she says she frantically read the news on her phone. There have been fires in California before, but this was the first time her father told her he needed to evacuate.

“My mind is like, ‘Is the fire at the door? Is it at the window?’ I just didn’t know,” she says. “I tried to stay positive.”

Then, at 10:11 a.m. — just two hours after talking to her father — she received a phone call that her father and brother were both dead.

“I lost it. I just started screaming,” White tells PEOPLE.

Anthony was a retired salesman who lost his left leg after diabetes complications. Her father was known to his grandchildren and great-grandchildren as “Fa-Fa” because he lived “Far Far Away.”

“My dad was the most wonderful dad that a girl could want and could have. He loved his family, he loved his children, he loved his grandchildren, he just loved,” White says.

She fondly remembers her dad and brother reading the paper together. Her brother tried his best to tell her, “I love you,” when her father called.

“They are both phenomenal, phenomenal people," she says. “It is hard to know that they are gone.”

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White says her father and brother lived with her brother, Jordan Mitchell, who was not at home at the time of the fire because he was in the hospital after he fell and hit his head. She also wonders why the caregiver who came to help her dad and brother wasn’t there.

She has no idea what happened after her father hung up the phone. Her aunt told her he was supposed to come to her house. “He didn’t make it,” she says. Family members tell White her father was waiting for an ambulance.

“He made a lot of phone calls that morning to family,” she says. “Everything is kind of a red flag to me. I don’t know. I’m just still stuck in the dark.”

But White says her father would never have left her brother behind.

“He was not going to leave. If anyone would’ve told him, ‘Anthony, you got to get out of here.’ Daddy was going to be like, ‘No, not until I get my babies.’ That’s the type of person my daddy was,” she says.

She continues to be confused as to why no one rescued them.

“Where was everyone?” she asks. “My dad and my brother could have been saved."

“I don’t know how to feel,” she adds. “I don’t know if I’m angry, if I’m mad, I don’t know how to feel and grasp all of this. I have questions.”

But for now, White holds onto the memory and love of her father.

“When I look in the mirror, I see my dad,” she says. “I know my daddy is still with me."

Click hereto learn more about how to help the victims of the L.A. fires.

source: people.com