By Lee Tolliver
The Virginian-Pilot
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — An overnight trailer fire sent all five family members to the hospital, spokesman Art Kohn said.
A 2-year-old girl was unresponsive.
The department received a call at 1:47 a.m. and firefighters were on the scene near the intersection of Holland Drive and Euclid Road by 1:53, Kohn said.
When firefighters arrived, two adults had already exited the engulfed trailer, Kohn said.
“I was told that neighbors had gotten one child, a 7-year-old girl, out of the structure,” he said. “By then the trailer was fully involved with lots of smoke, flames and intense heat.”
When the first crew arrived and found out there were still two children inside, a firefighter went in through a window and started handing children to a teammate, Kohn said. The first, the 2-year-old, then a 5-year-old boy, who was responsive. The firefighter then dove out the window, hitting the ground 6 feet below, Kohn said.
The firefighter is okay, Kohn said, and joined the three children in an ambulance headed for the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters in Norfolk. The two adults, believed to be the parents, were taken to Sentara Norfolk General.
“That guy has been in the department for 5 years, so he’s basically fairly new,” Kohn said. “He said in that situation you don’t think of yourself, you think of the child.
“That guy’s a hero.”
No information was yet available on the condition of the 2-year-old.
Miraculously, when firefighters had the structure under control and went in for inspections, they found the family dog alive in a back room.
“They ought to change that dog’s name to ‘Lucky’” Kohn said. “I have no idea how it survived.”