By Luis Perez
Newsday
Copyright 2007 Newsday, Inc.
NEW YORK — A Brooklyn mother and her two young children, trapped in their bedrooms behind a wall of flames and heavy smoke, were hospitalized with serious injuries after being rescued by firefighters early yesterday, authorities said.
The fire broke out just before midnight in the top-floor kitchen at 870 Coney Island Ave., a four-story brick apartment building in the Ditmas Park neighborhood, authorities said.
Firefighters assigned to Ladder Company 147, who first arrived at the building, entered the fourth-floor apartment to search for victims, said Lt. Gerard Curran, the supervising officer at the scene.
“We had to go in without the [water] line, because we knew there were people in there,” Curran said.
The firefighters dodged flames along a 25-foot hallway to carry out the victims, all of whom were unconscious when they were rushed to the burn unit at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan, officials said.
The mother, Asa Flores, 38, was listed in critical condition at the hospital with severe smoke inhalation and some burns, while the children, Abdul, 2, and Abraham, 4, were in stable condition with severe smoke inhalation, officials said.
“It looks like they are all going to live, which is tremendous,” Curran said.
The cause of the fire was under investigation, but did not appear to be suspicious, officials said.
The three firefighters who carried the family members out were Sean O’Grady, a veteran of two tours in Iraq, who only began duty with the Fire Department last week; Christopher Deszcz, a 15-year veteran; and Donald Wonderlich.
“We drill and constantly train,” Curran said, “and when we have something like this and we do it effectively it makes it all worthwhile.”