Durand Huggins was trapped Monday, tethered to a dialysis machine — dirty blood flowing out of his body through one tube, cleaned blood flowing back in through another — when worry turned to dread.
People at the clinic hinted something was going on with Angela Boggs, the unflappable dialysis technician he had befriended.
Durand played matchmaker between Angela and his brother, Dennis, about seven years ago and the couple had since had four children of their own, plus three others from other relationships.
Angela was scheduled to open the DaVita dialysis center in West Akron about 4:15 a.m. Monday, but didn’t show up.
Now it was after 11 a.m. and Durand was calling around trying to find her when someone told him to check the news. He saw a picture of a charred house and a headline about people feared dead.
Was that Angela and Dennis’ place?
The blue-gray siding and front porch were gone, but news reports confirmed it was 693 Fultz St., the house Angela and Dennis bought four years ago, hoping to fix it up and flip it.
Durand, who couldn’t leave until dialysis was finished, called relatives who rushed to the aftermath of one of Akron’s deadliest fires.
This — based on public records and interviews with family and friends and colleagues — is the story of Angela, Dennis and five children who were lost in the ruins.
Talented worker
Angela’s co-workers at the dialysis center called her Ms. Fix-it.
She worked at DaVita 11 years, a spokesman said, but had been a dialysis technician for 20.
At the DaVita office on White Pond Drive — tucked far off the street near model homes that face Interstate 77 — colleagues turned to Angela whenever the televisions, the plumbing that carried blood and chemicals in and out of the walls, the computers or anything else broke.
“She was really smart and taught herself how things worked,” said Kelly Weaver, a dialysis technician who often labored alongside Angela during 16½-hour workdays.
Angela’s fix-it skills extended to people, too.
Dialysis literally drains people, removing waste, salt and extra water from their bodies while maintaining safe levels of potassium, sodium and other substances
It’s not unusual for patients to lose consciousness during treatment at the center, a large, open space that can handle 20 dialysis treatments at a time, Weaver said.
When that happens, dialysis techs immediately stop treatment, clamping one line, unclamping another and begin pushing saline solution into a patient.
“Angie is really, really, really calm in those situations,” Weaver said. “I’ve seen Angie with a new tech who doesn’t know what she’s doing and Angie gently bumps them out of the way before the tech knows what has happened.”
Saline revives patients 99 percent of the time, Weaver said. When it doesn’t, techs call 911.
No one worked longer hours than Angela — 80 hours per week, Monday through Saturday, earning about $20 an hour straight time, $30 for overtime.
She was rarely late for her shift, which started at 4:15 a.m.
And if she was, no one worried, because Angela always showed up soon.
Family moves to Akron
Angela, 38, may have never met Dennis Huggins, 35, if U.S. car manufacturing stayed healthy.
Dennis was born in Fayetteville, N.C., while his father was stationed at Fort Bragg. But the family soon moved to Indianapolis, where Dennis had a son of his own — Tyennys “Ty” Huggins — when he was 14.
About three years later, Dennis’ 44-year-old father died unexpectedly. He had an enlarged heart.
“It gave him new purpose, new direction,” said Tony Huggins, 45, the eldest sibling in the family of four boys. “I watched my brother grow into a man.”
It also changed the relationship between Tony and Dennis. Tony, a decade older than Dennis, had always been a powerful big brother influence on Dennis, he said, but after their father died, Tony became a father figure in the tight-knit family.
In 2002, Tony, who worked at the Indianapolis Daimler-Chrysler Foundry, was transferred to Chrysler’s Twinsburg Stamping Plant and settled in Akron.
Denise Huggins, his mother, soon followed. Durand Huggins arrived in the Rubber City next, followed by Dennis, who later brought his son, Ty.
Tony set up Dennis in a rental he owned in North Hill and soon, Dennis’ brother, Durand, introduced Dennis to Angela.
It’s unclear how long Dennis and Angela dated before they arranged a bowling date where Ty could meet Angela and her two children, Brittany Boggs and Jared Boggs.
Soon after, the families merged into what the Huggins family calls their own Brady Bunch.
Dennis graduated from Vatterott College in Cleveland in 2011 with a degree in electrical technology. He graduated in 2013 from DeVry University with a degree in technical management.
But even with his education, an entry-level job didn’t pay enough to cover child care, Dennis’ mother said last week.
Angela and Dennis decided it made sense for him to be a stay-at-home dad while Angela continued to work.
Their first child, Daisia, was born six years ago. Kyle, Alivia and Cameron followed.
Angela’s Facebook page soon filled with pictures of their family adventures: Riding camels at a safari park, floating in inner tubes at a water park, laughing and spinning on a lady bug ride at a Garrettsville carnival, blowing bubbles on a relative’s porch.
They raised them, along with three from other relationships, as one family.
“They loved their children, all of their children,” Denise said.
Looking for a home
Dennis started scouring Akron for a fixer-upper he could work on while watching the kids.
Ty said his dad looked at a lot of houses before settling on 693 Fultz St. in Akron’s Sherbondy Hill neighborhood, which was then called Lane-Wooster.
Records show Dennis and Angela paid $4,500 in January 2014 for the 1925 three-bedroom colonial that set on a sharp, steep bend.
Ty said they first put a play set in the front yard and then a large, above-ground pool that the family dog later tore apart.
Dennis taught Ty and Jared how to hang ceilings and put up drywall in the house. And together, they installed carpet, vinyl and wood floors.
About two years after they moved in — April 18, 2016 — Angela was late for work at DaVita.
Her neighbors, Lindell Lewis, 65, and Gloria Jean Hart, 66, were killed in a house fire that investigators later determined was arson. No one was ever charged.
Angela told colleagues that morning she was stuck on her street because it was clogged with fire trucks and rescue vehicles.
It’s unclear if Angela knew the couple killed, but the fire likely brought up ugly memories for her.
In 2001, while living in Portage County, her husband Patrick Boggs beat her and doused her in gallons of kerosene, repeatedly taunting her with the open flame of his lighter.
As he stood over her, he threatened to bring Brittany— then 2, asleep in another room — to visit Angela’s grave.
Boggs served about 12 years in prison for crimes connected to the incident. Angela told friends she never sought a divorce because she feared it could cause more trouble.
Dennis apparently understood. When he and Angela started having children of their own, he made sure they all had his surname so, if something happened to Angela, Dennis would retain custody, Dennis’ mother said.
Something, however, changed in recent months to make Angela reconsider her marital status.
Family declined to talk about it. But a lawyer last week confirmed Angela was seeking a divorce from Patrick Boggs.
Other big changes appeared on the horizon for Angela and Dennis, too.
The oldest two children in the house moved out. Brittany, who is about 20, recently landed a job at Cedar Point and Ty was living at an Akron boarding house working as a telemarketer.
In February, Dennis’ mom, Denise, moved from Akron to a 55-and-older community outside of Tampa, Fla.
The next month, Angela and Dennis drove their family to Florida for a visit. They took pictures of the kids at the beach and Dennis said he wanted to move to Florida, too.
Angela agreed and the couple put their Fultz Street home on the website Zillow, for sale by owners.
Devastating fire
By the time anyone saw the fire Monday, it was likely too late to save Angela, Dennis or the five youngest children who lived there.
“The house is almost gone,” a woman told a 911 dispatcher about 3 a.m.
Investigators last week hadn’t yet determined whether the fire was an accident or intentionally set.
Angela’s estranged husband, Patrick Boggs, remains in the Portage County Jail. He was arrested hours after the fire on an unrelated parole violation, although investigators also searched his home looking for any clues to the fire.
On Thursday, fire investigators searched two Akron houses around the corner from Angela and Dennis’ home, too.
They left carrying bags of items from the homes, but it was unclear what they took or for what they may have been looking.
Hours later, about 20 members of the Huggins family gathered at Tony Huggins’ home a few miles away. They didn’t want to discuss what happened, they told a reporter; that was up to investigators.
They were there to remember those they lost.
Tony Huggins, the family patriarch, is a spiritual leader, too.
He serves as pastor of Shelton Temple Prayer Church of God on North Howard Street and chaplain at Summa Health.
“I feel like I was shaped and molded, I can’t say for a situation like this but, in a way, I was,” he said.
At Summa, he said, he usually helps others grieve the loss of a single person.
“Very rarely, tragically, two, but never seven,” he said, shaking his head.
A day earlier, Tony said, he was in a restaurant with his family, glanced at his grandchildren and saw the nieces and nephews he lost in the fire.
“I lost it,” he said, as family passed him a box of tissues. “I had to get up and leave.”
Other area clergy hoped to give Tony time to grieve with his family.
They stepped in last week to help manage the media, price-shop and arrange funeral and burial services — which have been paid — for the family.
Yet Tony finds himself consoling family and friends, too.
“It’s almost second nature,” he said.
“A lot of bad things happen in this world, but that doesn’t make God bad,” Tony said. “God is good and evil doesn’t change that.”
Amanda Garrett can be reached at 330-996-3725 or agarrett@thebeaconjournal.com.