Mother carries two daughters to safety following tragic NY apartment fire that killed her 3 sons

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Mother carries two daughters to safety following tragic NY apartment fire that killed her 3 sons

October 30, 2013 |

October 30, 2013

Three children have been killed – all brothers, one of them a four-month-old baby – after a fire erupted in a Bronx apartment building on Friday night.

The Fire Department said they were called to a six-story block at 64 West 165th Street, at Anderson Avenue, near Yankee Stadium, at about 8pm.

The fire broke out in Apt. 2C, with flames and smoke seen from the street.

Three siblings – Elijah Artis, 5, Jeremiah Artis, 2, and Michael Turner, four months – were pronounced dead on arrival at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center, police said.

The boys’ 25-year-old mother, their four-year-old sister and the twin sister of the four-month-old boy were treated for smoke inhalation.

Scene: Three children, all brothers, have been killed in a fire that broke out in second-level apartment in the Bronx. While the cause is unknown, the fire is suspected to have been started by candles after the power in the apartment was shut off from nonpayment

The mother of the three victims, aged 25, was seen climbing out this window and down the fire escape with her three other children

Stable: Other residents of the apartment block were treated for smoke inhalation

They are in a stable condition.

Other residents were also treated for smoke inhalation.

A large contingent of firefighters and nearly a dozen fire vehicles, working over a two-block stretch, had the fire under control by 10:30 pm.

Yvonne Laracuente, 27, who was with friends nearby, heard a long scream from a woman.

‘It was a yell,’ she told the New York Times.

‘She was screaming ”my babies”.’

When Ms. Laracuente and her friends ran toward the sound, they saw a woman wearing only a T-shirt on the fire escape of the building.

She was holding a toddler, Ms. Laracuente said.

Two men pulled down the fire-escape ladder and helped the woman and the child climb down.

While the fire is being treated as suspicious, with the cause unknown, one resident of the building said the electricity of apartment 2C been turned off, according to ABC 7.

Witness: One woman emotionally told ABC 7 how she watched paramedics attempt to resuscitate the boys that were pulled from the apartment

The Fire Department had the blaze extinguished by about 10.30pm

Another neighbor said power and gas company Con Edison had turned off the electricity due to nonpayment.

The mother had gone to the bodega downstairs and bought candles to light the apartment.

The mother had been approved for public assistance, and the lights were due to come back on Saturday

Strangely, the building is about 10 blocks from the site of a 2007 fire that killed 10 people, including eight children.

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