Two men and two women died in an early morning fire in a Mount Vernon home today. And it's believed that three of them were trapped in the burning house by a locked basement door.
The fire broke out around 3 a.m. at 11 S. Bond Street. A neighbor said she heard one woman's struggles to escape, "I heard her hollering, screaming and crying. I looked out the window and I saw smoke everywhere."
According to the Journal News, "One victim was found inside a basement door, two at the foot of the steps in the basement and the fourth near a back door of the house, [Mount Vernon Fire Chief Ted] Stevenson said. A door leading outside from the basement was locked from the inside and outside, Stevenson said. One resident tried to drag his brother out of the basement but the brother had succumbed to the fire. The would-be rescuer himself ended up in Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, police said."
One civilian was injured and three firefighters were injured. The investigation is ongoing.
