Trapped NY Firefighters Escape Through Window
By Sarah Moses Buckshot
Source Syracuse Media Group, N.Y.
SYRACUSE, NY -- Syracuse firefighters pulled two unresponsive people from a burning house this morning on the city’s East Side, according to Syracuse Fire Chief Michael Monds.
Fire crews were called to Buckingham Avenue, near Lancaster Avenue, just after 3 a.m. Monday morning, according to Onondaga County 911 records.
When fire crews arrived on the scene there were reports of three people trapped in the three-story building, Monds said.
A mother and her young son on the first floor escaped the fire before firefighters arrived. A neighbor called them to tell them to get out of the house, he said.
Two people were reported on the second floor and a third person was reported on the third floor.
Fire crews fought through the flames to rescue the people, Monds said.
The two people on the second floor were unresponsive when firefighters found them. Firefighters took one of the people through a back staircase and the other person was taken out of a second-floor window and down a ground ladder.
Monds said bringing an unresponsive person down a 30-foot portable ground ladder is extremely difficult.
Crews that were searching for a resident on the third floor became trapped in the fire when their exit was blocked off. Monds said the firefighters had to jump from a third-floor window to the second-floor roof.
They were uninjured and went back to fighting the fire, Monds said.
Firefighters confirmed that the third-floor resident was not in the apartment and the person was accounted for outside the house, Monds said.
“It was a very brave effort,” Monds said of the firefighters’ work.
The rescue was also dangerous because there were live power lines down that firefighters had to work around, he added.
The fire remains under investigation. It is unknown at this time whether the house had working smoke detectors.
The two people pulled from the fire were taken to the hospital. Their conditions are unknown at this time.
Fire crews pull two people from burning house early Monday morning on Syracuse's East Side.
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