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Fire officials say a smoke detector had been unplugged and its battery removed in the Brooklyn apartment where a fire left a 33-year-old man and his 12-year-old nephew dead early yesterday morning. It was second fatal fire from the weekend, after a fire in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood claimed the lives of five family members.
Guyanese immigrants Shawn Monderson and nephew Ceimon Fraser had just moved into the apartment last week, because it was closer to Monderson's work as a school bus driver, according to the Daily News. Monderson, who had just become a U.S. citizen last week, was Ceimon's legal guardian because his mother had returned to Guyana. Uncle Frederick Monderson said, "It's a family tradition that we look out for each other...As a young working man, he stepped up and did what he had to do for Ceimon. He was like his father."
Fire officials also said that a candle in another apartment started the blaze at 1214 Hancock Street. The News adds that, per residents in the building, it had been "converted into a roominghouse where tenants shared bathrooms. It was unclear whether the conversion was legal." And relatives are caught between their mourning and worrying if they can pay for funeral arrangements.
Photograph from 1010WINS
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Again, another heartbreaking loss.
Check your smoke detectors everyone, and have a plan in case of a fire!
There's no excuse for this. Fires and related fatalities in cities are way too common, especially when $1 worth of battery would have saved their lives. Whether the conversion was legal or not, if there was a smoke detector, there should have been a battery in it.
Sorry, the problem with the fire was not a single battery and the city's fixers who are behind sending out these stories know it. The problem was that the city's building had no proper emergency exit for the family to use.
Another horrible tragedy that could have been avoided so easily. Even if there isn't a proper exit, a working smoke alarm can awaken and alert the residents early enough for them to either battle a smaller blaze, or find a way out. Obviously that landlord should be charged with crimminal negligence, but smoke alarms matter.