Solace

Jeff Wiehe: Rhonda Berger won’t talk about the phone call, other than to say, “I was on the phone with her the whole time.”

The call came early Friday from her daughter, who was trapped in a bathroom – smoke and gas attacking her lungs. Berger’s daughter was with her two roommates as the Willows of Coventry apartment around them burned so intensely the floor began to fail.

At some point, the 19-year-old college student suffered a heart attack, Berger said, and later her heart would suffer further damage from failed CPR attempts to revive the woman, who died Saturday from smoke inhalation.

Berger won’t talk about the last hour with her daughter, either, one spent tucked away with family in a room at St. Joseph Hospital with a sign asking for privacy hung outside the door.