A 24-year-old blind man escaped a recent house fire in Cicero, New York, but his grandparents were tragically killed and neighbors are reeling from the loss.
Cicero Police Chief Steve Rotunno said the fire erupted on Saturday at the home on Crockett Drive and an 81-year-old man and a 75-year-old woman tragically lost their lives, Syracuse.com reported on Sunday.
According to Cicero Fire Chief Jim Perrin, their grandson, who is blind, smelled smoke and was able to get out of the house in the nick of time by feeling the walls and sensing the heat and colder air as he made his way out the back door.
Aerial video footage shows smoke rising from the house, and News Channel 9 noted that 14 agencies responded to battle the flames that had spread from the attached garage:
The blind man made it out of the house as firefighters were on their way to the scene, and neighbors rushed over to help him get to an ambulance. He was then transported to a local hospital for care. Meanwhile, Perrin said the elderly couple was apparently trapped inside the house. Firefighters eventually located the woman after making it through the front door. Officials pronounced her deceased at the scene.
Intense fire and heat conditions prevented the firefighters from rescuing the elderly man, whose body they later discovered near the kitchen.
In addition, “Chief Perrin said that there were two firefighters on the scene who were injured and transferred to the hospital. Sunday evening Perrin shared that the firefighters have been released from the hospital and are safe and recovering,” CNY Central reported on Sunday.
Neighbors handed out water and ice for the responding crew members, and one of the neighbors took in the victims’ cat overnight.
Another neighbor expressed his sadness over what happened. “It’s a shock. I mean, it’s ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ type of thing. Count your blessings and hold everybody a little bit closer, you know? It’s sad, it’s really sad. They were good people,” he told News Channel 9.
