Two brothers, ages 6 and 11, were killed last night in a fire that broke out in their St. Albans home. The NYPD says Andrew Kavangh, 6, and John Kavanagh, 11, were found unconscious on the second floor of 188-15 Tioga Drive at around 7:20 p.m. yesterday, after authorities arrived on the scene to battle the blaze. The boys were transported to Queens Hospital Center, where they were pronounced dead.
A 33-year-old man was also found in the home, and he was transported to Jamaica Hospital in stable condition. Though his relationship to the boys was unclear, witnesses say he tried to save them before jumping out a second floor window. "He said there were two kids on the first floor. He tried to go down to the first floor; when he opened the door, the smoke overtook him, so he went back and jumped out of the window," neighbor Cass Agbi told the Daily News.
The boys' mother reportedly arrived home an hour after the fire broke out. "To see a mother come home and find out her children had burned up, it’s horrific,” another neighbor told the Daily News. "She was yelling and screaming and asking God, ‘Why?’"
Officials believe the fire started on the first floor of the house, then traveled up to the second. It took firefighters about 40 minutes to put out the blaze. The cause of the fire is still unknown.
