3 Children Injured, 1 Critically, In Southwest Philly House Fire
By Jericka Duncan, Dan Majka, Tim Jimenez, John McDevitt
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Three children were injured during a house fire in Southwest Philadelphia early Saturday morning.
The blaze broke out around 5:40 a.m. inside a two-story rowhome along the 6500 block of Windsor Avenue in the Cobbs Creek section of the city.
Emergency crews arrived on scene to find heavy flames shooting from the home.
Neighbor Quimara Lee called 9-1-1. She says she saw a man who lived in home pull a burning mattress out of the house.
"The mattress was on fire when they dragged it out. I saw the son dragging it out but he couldn't get it out completely and then the fire department pulled the rest of it out," Lee explains.
Authorities say three children were rescued and taken to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia where they are being treated for burns. A 7-year-old girl is listed in critical condition, a 6-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl are listed in stable condition. A man was also rescued and taken to an area hospital in an unknown condition.
"Everyone was running outside, yelling and screaming about the fire," says witness Valda Dodson, "and then a mattress was outside the door that was burning in flames and it was smoke out of the windows. The fire people came and by then they came and they rushed in, got control of the fire and everything and they brought the little girl out and they had oxygen on her."
Crews placed the fire under control at 6 a.m.
The American Red Cross is assisting at least nine people who lived inside the home who were displaced by the fire. The home is boarded up but the structure does not appear to be badly damaged.
The cause of the blaze remains under investigation.
