Nov 29, 2009 2:23 pm US/Eastern
Funeral Set For Crown Heights Fire Victims Sunday
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
-
-
Two children and an adult were killed after a fire broke out in a 4-story building in Crown Heights, Brooklyn on Nov. 18, 2009.
CBS
Three people killed in a Brooklyn fire which triggered changes to the city's 9-1-1 system were set to be laid to rest Sunday.
Funeral services for 42-year-old Myrtel Jean, his 2-year-old son Fabrice and 1-year-old son Sebastian, were to be held at the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The grave plots have
been donated along with clothing with for the victims' bodies.
Flames took over their sixth floor Crown Heights apartment earlier this month.
Critics pointed to a delayed response by firefighters, but the union blamed a new unified call system and barely trained dispatchers.
Now dispatchers must conference in a fire department official.
Rose Danielle Etienne, a 26-year-old mother of two, lost both her children and their father in the apartment fire. She was at work when her world shattered and she came home to find everyone gone.
"We were always together. We'd sleep together," she told CBS 2, mentioning how one of her children loved crackers, the other bananas.
Since the fire, Etienne has been living with the mother of the man she called her husband in another tiny Brooklyn apartment. They are both adrift, stunned, and overwhelmed, but in the arms of community determined to help.
"They've lost basically everything. They have no resources to bury this family, no funds to start a new life over again; no funds for a new home, a new apartment, for furniture, for clothes, nothing," said City Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Brooklyn). "They lost everything in that fire."
The father was home because he'd recently lost his job. The older baby was kept home from nursery school because of a fever. She spoke briefly about the man of the house, Myrtel Jean, and how much he meant to her.
"He gave me everything I wanted, everything I asked him, he told me, 'Wait I'm going to give it to you Saturday, or another day, but I know I'm gonna get it,'" she recalled, saying they still bring her joy. "To me they're still alive."
CBS 2HD's Lou Young contributed to this report.
(© 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
World's Most Useless Facts
Click to enlarge
BLIZZARD WARNING IN EFFECT 36 mins ago 
Newest Snow Could Make Record Books In Parts Of NJ 48 mins ago 
Stumble It!
Comments