A 17-year-old girl who sustained serious injuries has died, her teenage brother is clinging to life and two other family members are also hospitalized after an early morning house fire in Westchester ripped through their home.
The fire started around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday in Cortlandt Manor.
According to fire officials, as soon as firefighters arrived at the scene, they saw the mom outside with an adult son and heavy smoke coming from the home. She told the firefighters that her other two children — a teenage boy and a teenage girl — were still inside the home.
Because the front door was engulfed in flames, firefighters had to undergo emergency procedures and put up ladders to multiple windows on multiple floors to try and get the children out.
When they managed to bring them out, they started life-saving measures on the teens who were in cardiac arrest, according to the Lake Mohegan Fire Chief Thomas Eade.
“CPR was immediately initiated. That was challenging because there was fire being blown from three floors of the house and now two patients in cardiac arrest,” Eade said. “Our crews did a valiant effort of CPR resuscitation efforts. The patients were subsequently transported to New York Presbyterian Hospital. Pulses were brought back. And what we have learned throughout the day is that one teenage female has passed as a result of her injuries.”
The teen boy continues to be in critical condition.
Meanwhile, the mom and the adult son are stabilized and will be brought down to Westchester Medical Center, according to Eade.
A firefighter was treated for injuries he received as he was trying to rescue the teens. He has since been released from the hospital.
According to the fire chief, the fire was electrical in nature: a power strip that may have overheated which caused the inferno.
