Oct 12, 2008 2:03 pm US/Eastern
10-Year-Old Remains Critical After Chelsea Fire
NEW YORK (AP) ―
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A 10-year-old boy is the only survivor of a Chelsea apartment fire. He is in critical condition.
CBS
A family of five, including three children as young as 15 months, died in a blaze Saturday that filled their apartment with thick black smoke and kept them from escaping through the front door, fire officials said.
Outside the family's apartment, a small memorial is growing. Friends and strangers are leaving flowers, candles, and mementos behind to remember the family that died.A 10-year-old boy who survived the blaze was hospitalized in critical condition after the fire in a public housing complex in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood. The boy was found with two other family members in a back bedroom, while the rest of the family sought refuge in a full bathtub and underneath a bathroom sink, officials said.
The cause of the fire, which began in the kitchen of the sixth-floor apartment, was under investigation. But the Fire Department of New York said the apartment's smoke detector had been unplugged and the battery was removed.
The New York City Housing Authority said the smoke detector was inspected six months ago and was working.
Killed were a 40-year-old man, Maschay Joa Valdez; Delkis Balbuena, a 34-year-old woman; and three girls, Nanny Joa Balbuena, 8; Bet-El Joa Balbuena, 3, and Ruth Joa Balbuena, 15 months. The 10-year-old boy was not identified.
Autopsies on the victims will be performed Sunday, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the city medical examiner's office. The boy was at Jacobi Medical Center, enclosed in a hyperbaric chamber that supplies oxygen to burn victims, fire officials said. A hospital spokesperson didn't return telephone calls Saturday.
Firefighters worked quickly, shattering windows and extinguishing flames about 45 minutes after the blaze began at 6:30 a.m. on the top floor of a building in the Robert Fulton Houses.
The fire began in the kitchen, close to the front door; the hallway acted like a chimney, drawing smoke back into the apartment, deputy fire chief James Daly said.
"The fire didn't allow them to get past to that door," Daly said. "They were trapped in the rear."
Kathy Creer, who lives one floor below, said she knocked on the family's door after a neighbor told her about the blaze. "I was banging but I heard nothing, no noise," she said.
"[There's a] little boy fighting for his life, so who knows," Creer said. "If he don't make it, that's the whole family."
"This is really tragic," neighbor Miguel Acevedo said. "Nobody wants to see a family removed like this."
The hallway was hazy from the smoke, which was pouring from underneath the apartment door, she said.
Creer called firefighters at around 6:30 a.m. after running up one floor to try and save the doomed family.
"I started banging on around, the door was black, [there was] heavy smoke coming out," Creer said. "I kept banging, pushing against the door."
"There was a smoke detector," Daly said. "We believe it was not operational."
Creer said she kept pressing firefighters to find the children.
"I kept saying, `Where's the babies? Where's the babies?"' she said.
AnnMarie Baronowski, interim president of the Fulton Tenants Association, said tenants have been known to temporarily remove batteries from smoke detectors because they are very sensitive and can sometimes go off while people are cooking or showering.
"I know I do it all the time – I turn it off or I remove it or I take out the battery," neighbor Doris Pagan said. "Don't do that. It could have saved their lives. There were so many of them."
"It breaks my heart," Pagan said. "Especially the little babies."
Candles and flowers continue to build up at the building's entrance to remember the family that moved in just a year ago, taken away in this horrific way – way too soon.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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