Shock and disbelief
THE deaths of four Jamaicans in the fire that engulfed an apartment complex in Bronx, New York, Thursday evening have shocked their relatives, one of whom has been hospitalised.
“My mother collapsed and is in hospital; my big sister is not yet responsive,” Kevin Stewart, brother and uncle to the victims, told the Jamaica Observer yesterday.
“I’m still trying to come to terms. I’m not a hundred per cent there yet. I’m the only one not at the hospital because I couldn’t deal with it. I just left there and came home,” Stewart said.
“So as far as my state of mind, I honestly can’t call it just yet. Right now I could only say shock and disbelief,” he added.
His sister, Karen, 37, who worked at a hotel in Manhattan; her two-year-old daughter Kylie Francis; stepdaughter Kelesha Francis, who Stewart said was about five years old; and 18-year-old daughter Shantae Young all perished in the blaze that killed 12 people and which New York Mayor Bill de Blasio described as the deadliest in the city in 25 years.
Stewart said that Karen’s husband, who was at home when the fire started, is battling for life in the Jacobi Medical Center. “We’re not a hundred per cent sure if he’s going to make it,” the distraught man said.
Yesterday morning, New York City Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro was reported as saying that the fire was caused by a child playing with a stove.
He told reporters that an unattended three-year-old boy accidentally started the blaze, and as the child’s mother fled, she left the door open, allowing the fire to enter the hallway.
“The stairs acted like a chimney, and took the fire so quickly upstairs that people had very little time to react,” Nigro told a news conference outside the building.
“They couldn’t get back down the stairs. Those that tried, a few of them perished. … Most of the deaths occurred pretty early, some of them before we could arrive,” he added.
The New York Daily News reported that five of the victims were found dead inside the century-old building, and said Nigro blamed a combination of the flames and heavy smoke for the dozen deaths in the Belmont section.
Yesterday afternoon, Kevin Stewart said that Kylie had only just marked her second birthday two-and-a-half weeks ago, while Shantae turned 18 in November.
Stewart told the Observer that his eldest brother, who lives in Jamaica, is also trying to come to terms with the news.
Stewart, who lives in Queens, said the family is from Spanish Town, St Catherine. He said he has spoken with another of his brothers, who lives in Atlanta, and they have discussed the possibility of sending the bodies of Kelesha and Shantae to Jamaica for burial.
“We don’t want to send the baby there because she was not born in Jamaica, and we can’t separate the mother and the baby, so that’s the debate we’re having right now,” he said.
However, they are awaiting word from the eldest brother in Jamaica “because he’s like the patriarch of the family”, Stewart explained.
“It’s a lot to take in, because I lost my father in 2010,” Stewart added.
Yesterday, Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister Senator Kamina Johnson Smith expressed sadness at the tragic loss of life in the fire.
“We are working with our Consulate General and the authorities in New York to obtain further information on the situation,” Johnson Smith said in a statement.