Tragedy in the North: Fire in Tsfat, 2-year-old dies from injuries
About 19 people were injured in a fire on the ground floor of an eight-floor building. "The toddler reached us unconscious with burns and after inhaling smoke," said an MDA paramedic.
By ALON HACHMONThe fire and rescue forces in Tsfat help citizens out of their building which rose up in flames seemingly due to the extremely warm weather.(photo credit: ALON HACHMON)
The police and fire departments were called on Saturday to a living facility in Tsfat due to a fire that broke out in an apartment on the ground floor. Several families were in the building and were trapped within it. The fire department reported one baby, a two-year-old toddler and a 10-year-old child were found among those trapped. The toddler was in fatal condition according to MDA, and shortly after was reported to be dead.Ziv Hospital in Tsfat received a part of those that were trapped after they had been removed from the location of the incident. The hospital reported that approximately 19 people were received, 12 of which were adults, out of which three were moderately injured from inhaling smoke and the rest of those injured were in mild condition and were treated by the emergency care staff. The fire and rescue staff are gaining control of the fire and are rescuing the rest of those trapped in the building. There doesn't seem to be any more people injured at the given time. The police force that were called to the location began investigated the reason for the fire."When we arrived to the location we saw thick smoke coming out of the windows of the building and commotion in the road," said Zohar Firgun, a member of the emergency care unit and MDA paramedic Oren Neeman. "Immediately we made contact with the fire department that rescued those injured and brought them to us. Near the entrance of the building, they transferred the toddler, approximately two years old, to us, who suffered from burns and was unconscious due to inhalation of smoke. We immediately provided life-saving medical care and to perform CPR, then evacuating him to Ziv Hospital while caring for him."According to data provided by the Beterem Organization for child safety, this is the third case this year of child mortality in a fire. For comparison, throughout all of 2018, three children died in fires. Beterem CEO Orly Silvinger said that "we were witness to a wave of fired in the past few days affected by the extreme weather. Installation of smoke detectors in homes is critical to save lives. Smoke detectors do not prevent fires but alert about them in time and allow the distancing of children, the quick extinguishing of the fire and the immediate call for fire and rescue forces."The wave of fires in Israel that began on Thursday with the fire that burned several dunams and destroyed several homes continued on Friday night with more fires in several locations, including homes surrounding Jerusalem, Modi'in. The Gaza border communities faced fires as well, due to incendiary balloons.This article was translated by Tamar Beeri.
