Latino Thanksgiving tragedy: father and daughter die in fire in New York; two seriously injured relatives
Perfecto Aramboles and his daughter Odalys Aramboles died when their apartment burned down this morning at the beginning of “Thanksgiving Day” in The Bronx (NYC).
The 60-year-old father and his 20-year-old autistic daughter died despite their other stepdaughter’s desperate attempt to get through thick smoke and a locked door to their rescue, neighbors and officials said.
Rosanna Suarez (42), stepdaughter and stepsister of the deceased, tried to save them, but was hospitalized in critical condition with her mother Lorenza Suárez, 63.
The fire broke out in the kitchen of the family’s second-floor apartment on Harrison Ave., near W. Tremont Ave., in the Morris Heights neighborhood, around 5:30 a.m. today, it reported. Daily News.
Neighbors said Suárez’s cries and calls for help could be heard throughout the five-story residential building.
Resident Manuel Jimenez, 50, said he ran downstairs from his 4th-floor apartment when he heard screaming and saw Rosanna Suarez trying to get back into the smoke- and fire-filled apartment.
“She said: ‘My mother, my sister, my father are there! They are sleeping! And my door is locked,’” Jiménez was quoted as saying. “The daughter tried to get in there. I grabbed her and said, ‘You can’t. Do not go. She was crying and screaming. I would have done the same. I tried to do the best I could. I think she went back in.”
Authorities said the fire did not appear to be suspicious while they continue to investigate the cause. The fire completely destroyed the apartment.
On the eve, yesterday in The Bronx a mother and her two underage daughters were forced to jump out of the window to save their lives when a fire broke out that left several injured, including four firefighters, and homeless people. Miraculously no one died.
