Colorado boy, 10, dies after alerting family to fire
LEADVILLE, Colo. - A 10-year-old Colorado boy is being touted as a hero by his community after he died in a fire in a mobile home he shared with his family, reports CBS Denver.
The boy's mother was sleeping along with three of her other children and her grandchild when the boy woke her up and alerted her to flames in a back bedroom in their Leadville home on Friday.
The family made it out of the home safely -- except for the boy, 10-year-old Marc Anthony Reyes Lizardo.
Firefighters battled the blaze for four hours but were unable to rescue the boy.
"We were just praying -- my family, my cousins ... then one of the sheriffs came up to me and he said that he was really sorry (crying) that they still couldn't find him," the boy's sister Itzel Lizardo recounted to the station. "They knew he was not alive anymore, it was very hard. I didn't want to accept it."
"I cannot image how he was feeling in there ... his emotions, what he was thinking throughout the whole time," Lizardo added. "He didn't deserve that."
The firefighters who responded to the fire are also struggling to come to terms with the boy's death, reports the station.
"They are having a real tough time with that. All firefighters know when they take on that kind of a task that there's a possibility someone will die in a fire during their watch," Betty Benson with the Lake County Public Information Center said. "But that doesn't make it any easier."
Officials with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation are still trying to determine the cause of the fire. Meanwhile, residents of Leadville are organizing a carwash and a cookout fundraiser to help the Lizardo family rebuild.