By Andrew Marra
The Palm Beach Post
BELLE GLADE, Fla. — Two adults and a young boy were pulled from a burning building on Main Street Tuesday morning after a candle started a fire in their living room, officials said.
The three family members — apparently a father and mother and their young son — survived but were taken to hospitals to be treated for serious injuries. A fire-rescue official said the three were found on the ground around their front door, barely conscious.
“They were trying to get out and smoke overcame them,” said Capt. Rick Christmas of Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue.
Investigators determined the fire was started by a lit candle, but it wasn’t clear how the candle was being used. A neighbor said the father’s mother had recently died and that it appeared he had set up a small shrine with a candle and a photo in the living room.
The neighbor, Lizbeth Hernandez, said she had heard the family pounding the door and crying for help. Her brother tried to open the door to save them but could not because the door knob burned his hand.
“It was crazy hearing them screaming and not being able to do anything,” Hernandez said.
Firefighters arrived quickly from a station a few blocks away. They found the family in the smoke-filled doorway with a thermal imaging camera and pulled them to safety.
The owners of the building, Carl and Anita Courson, who were featured in a front-page story in The Palm Beach Post Sunday about the electrocution death of their adult son in Okeechobee County, said the family had been renting the apartment above their wholesale grocery for several years.
The father was identified by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office as Jorel Ledan, 42. The names of the mother and young boy were not immediately known.
The fire was reported about 7:40 a.m. at 429 S. Main St. in downtown Belle Glade. It was mostly contained to a single apartment unit in the two-story building’s second floor, officials said. The other apartments and the downtown grocery were not seriously damaged.
The child was initially being treated at St. Mary’s Medical Center and the adults were being treated at Delray Medical Center, fire-rescue Capt. Don DeLucia said.
A sheriff’s office spokeswoman said the boy and Ledan were both taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital’s burn center in Miami for further treatment.
Staff writer Sonja Isger contributed to this story.
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