Tony Marrero, Dan Sullivan
Tampa Bay Times
(TNS)
A 5-year-old boy, his baby sister and their father were killed Monday in a Lithia mobile home fire, and their brother and mother were taken to a hospital.
It happened around 1 p.m. in a small mobile home park in the in the 8600 block of Pritcher Road, a little east of the Polk County line.
Mother Veronica Bermudez, 22, told authorities that she and her husband, Angel Lopez Sr., 22, were sleeping when their 3-year-old son Elijah woke them up and said the stove was on fire, according to Hillsborough County Sheriff’s officials. Bermudez grabbed the boy and headed for an exit. She and Elijah escaped from their burning home, but her husband and their two other children — 5-year-old son Angel Jr. and 14-month-old daughter Harmony — did not.
”She said the last thing she remembers is turning around and seeing her husband with the other two children walking behind her,” Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said in a news conference. “She got outside and they never made it outside.”
Bermudez called 911 to report that her home was on fire and her husband and two of her kids still were inside, the sheriff said. Within 12 minutes, crews arrived on the scene and discovered the home was engulfed in flames. The roof collapsed as first responders tried to enter.
A deputy who responded “couldn’t get within 20 feet of that trailer” because the fire was so intense, Chronister said. “He said, ‘Sheriff, I have never felt more helpless in my entire life. The only thing I was able to do was to try and comfort, to no avail, this mother and her 3-year-old son.’”
Neighbors gathered in the afternoon heat along a dirt road where yellow tape was strung near emergency vehicles. They gazed at the charred mobile home, its roof crumpled.
Suzette Peña, a cousin to the mother, spoke through tears about what Bermudez had told her of what occurred. She described the 3-year-old waking Bermudez from a nap.
“He walked in the room saying, ‘Mommy, mommy, the house is on fire,’” Peña said.
As Bermudez escaped through the front door, wind from outside seemed to stir the flames, Peña said.
“There was no way for her to go back for her husband and her two kids,” she said.
Firefighters were concerned the flames might spread to nearby mobile homes due to the dry conditions, but they were able to prevent that from happening, he said.
The cause of the fire is unknown. Hillsborough County Fire Rescue was investigating.
Peña expressed frustration that the emergency response wasn’t quicker. She spoke of anger. Bermudez and her family are devastated, she said.
“She’s really heartbroken,” Peña said through tears. “She wishes her life to be over.”
Veronica and Angel Sr. met as teenagers, Peña said. Angel was “an amazing dad,” she said. He was in the process of trying to find a job. They struggled, Peña said, to pay bills.
“They learned to be adults together because they were just kids,” she said.
Bermudez worked at a convenience store called 7-Star, which is near where the family lived.
She’d worked the early morning shift Monday, from 2 to 11 a.m., Peña said. She was napping before she hoped to pick up a second shift Monday afternoon to help pay the family’s bills.
The family also lost two dogs in the fire, Peña said.
Bermudez lived with her parents before moving into the mobile home in January, her cousin said. She will probably move back in with them now, Peña said. Most of Bermudez’s belongings are gone. She escaped the fire wearing only a nightgown, Peña said.
Peña said the mobile home park has had electrical problems, and she wonders if the fire’s cause was electrical.
Chronister said he talked to Bermudez’s father, who had dropped off 14-month-old Harmony about an hour before the fire started.
”He was telling me, ‘Sheriff, this is a hard-working family, they pay by the week here, the two of them hustle to try to pay their bills to make sure they’re able to provide food in these little babies’ stomach and a shelter and roof over their head,’” Chronister said.
“Please say a prayer for this young mother, who lost two of her children and her husband,” Chronister said.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated. Due to incorrect information provided by the Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office, an earlier version of this story misidentified the gender of the 5-year-old boy who died in the fire.
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