Bronx house fire leaves 12-year-old girl dead, 7-year-old boy injured
NEW YORK -- A 12-year-old girl died Saturday after a house fire in the Bronx.
Firefighters arrived at the home on Boyd Avenue in the Wakefield section just before 4:30 p.m., responding to reports of flames coming from the second floor with someone trapped inside.
Neighbor Les Padgett had already tried to get in, but he couldn't make it past the door.
"I just run down here to try to see what I could do, but it was too much smoke, so there was not much I could do. The fire department came fast," he said.
But it was too late. The 12-year-old girl perished inside.
Crews had the fire under control within 45 minutes, but family members waited for hours after the smoke cleared, hoping for answers.
"Oh my god, I feel so sad," neighbor Nalini Gocool said.
Gocool lives across the street and helped welcome the girl's family to the neighborhood just this summer. When her daughter called her with the news, her heart sank.
"I said it's got to be that house and it has to be that child. Because I know the two kids, the boy was good, and the girl was disabled," Gocool said.
A 7-year-old boy was rescued from the home with minor injuries.
Fire marshals continue to investigate the cause of the fire.
