Neighbors Charge Into Inferno To Rescue Jurupa Valley Family

cbs ^ | October 30, 2012

[BenLurkin]

JURUPA VALLEY (CBSLA.com) — Neighbors risked their lives Sunday night to rescue a family from a house fire in Jurupa Valley.

Sandra Ramos, 31, and her three children were inside the home on Lorita Street when the blaze erupted around 11 p.m.

While two of the kids managed to get out, their 5-year-old brother and Ramos were trapped inside the residence.

Neighbor Victor Baez said he saw the fire from his home when he heard someone scream.

Baez said when he got outside, a girl told him her mother was still inside the structure.

He jumped over a fence and tried to go through the front door of the family’s home, but it was locked.

Baez then decided to run to the side garage door.

“It was closed, so I kicked the door. I was looking right there and I (saw) the little kid right there,” Baez said.

Baez and a neighbor both pulled out the unconscious 5-year-old boy.

Resident Isabel Castañeda Tinajero was able to revive the child with CPR, which she just learned last Tuesday.

David Valadez and another neighbor ran into the home to try to find Ramos.

Valadez’s son, Freddy, said, “He said he was crawling in and he’d come out for air. And then he said he just felt dizzy from the smoke.”

Susana Valadez said her father had to give up because it was too dangerous.

“I don’t want him to go in there because what (if) he gets in danger,” she said.

Firefighters were able to get Ramos out of the home when they arrived on the scene, but she later died at the hospital.

The fire is under investigation.

[packrat35]

Resident Isabel Castañeda Tinajero was able to revive the child with CPR, which she just learned last Tuesday.

Something for all of us to think about.

[rmh47]

A fire, once past the incipient stage, triples in size every minute. The smoke from a fire in a typical residence is incredibly toxic and corrosive. It contains hydrogen chloride, carbon monoxide, phosgene, hydrogen bromide, hydrogen fluoride, acrolein, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, sulfur dioxide, various aerosol liquids, fine particulates, and probably some nitric acid. That's a partial list. (LC 50 for CO is 1% for 1 minute, BTW.)

These substances are produced by burning all the cheap plastic crap we buy at WalMart that is made in China from oil that comes from the Middle East.

Your life expectancy in such an environment is short.

Fifty years ago, when the average home had far less plastic and much more natural materials (wood, cotton, and wool, for example) in it, firefighters could go into a fire without SCBAs (that's the same as SCUBA, but without the underwater part) by crawling on their bellies. Today, every firefighter that enters a burning building wears an SCBA.

[SaraJohnson]

I want to be surrounded by people like Victor Baez and Isabel Castañeda Tinajero! What brave and good people.

Actually, I am blessed with awesome neighbors. :)