Friends Remember Victim as Quick to Smile

Mike Durkin was slumped on a curb near the First Interstate Bank building Thursday, still disbelieving the fact that his best friend was killed in the inferno.

“I’m still in shock,” Durkin said. “We just had a birthday party for him three weeks ago.”

Durkin, a truck driver, went to the scene to retrieve the car of Alexander John Handy, 24, that had to be driven home. Handy, a maintenance engineer from Palmdale, was the only person to die in the high-rise fire. Forty janitorial workers and firefighters were injured.

Firefighters found Handy’s body in a freight elevator on the 12th floor several hours after the fire was snuffed out at 2:19 a.m. Thursday.

Handy apparently went up in the elevator to investigate the report of flames but was trapped on the floor where the fire began. A janitor heard Handy’s radioed calls for help: “Car 33’s in flames! Please help!”

Durkin had no explanation for what led up to Handy’s death. But he could not believe that his friend would jeopardize his life by riding an elevator into the ferocious flames.

“He was not a stupid guy,” he said. “He was a real fun-loving guy.”

Reared in North Hollywood, Handy graduated from Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley in 1982. Friends there recalled him as being quick with a joke or a smile.

He served in the Air Force for four years, during which time he met his wife, Kim.

Although it took more than an hour to drive from the Antelope Valley to downtown Los Angeles, friends said Handy enjoyed life in the new Cape Cod-style home in a quiet neighborhood on the south edge of Palmdale, where he lived with his wife and 2-year-old daughter, Brittany.

Durkin was with his friend’s family Thursday afternoon when the coroner’s office called, confirming that Handy had been killed in the flames.

“Up to that time, I was telling Kim that Alex was probably on the roof, laughing at us all,” he said.

The neighborhood was quiet Friday. The young widow and child were not at home. She was staying with relatives in the San Fernando Valley, neighbors reported.

“It’s such a tragedy,” one neighbor said.