The Associated Press
 AP Photo/John Cetrino Boston firefighter Joe O’Connor waits for evacuation. |
BOSTON — A quick-moving blaze consumed a three-story home Monday, sending firefighters scrambling up ladders to pluck screaming children from the top floor and hurting 14 adults and children, authorities said.
Five adults and six children were hospitalized, including a 2-year-old boy whom a firefighter discovered crying on a bed in a smoke-filled room, authorities said.
Three other people were treated at the scene.
The Boston Globe reported on its Web site that two of those injured were in critical condition, including the 2-year-old, found by a firefighter who was groping on the floor through the smoke.
“I opened a couple of doors and I heard a faint cry, and just feeling around there, and heard a baby on the bed,” firefighter Renard Miller told reporters.
“So I felt around the bed and found the baby,” he said. “I took my mask off and put it on the baby’'s face.”
Neighbor Rosamund Bloom said she saw the flames start on the first floor, then race up the building and through the roof.
A man rescued an adult and two children, and a woman jumped from a third-floor balcony, she said.