BOSTON (WHDH) - Firefighters rescued a mother and her two children from the top-floor balcony of an apartment building in Boston’s South End as fast-moving flames engulfed the structure on Wednesday morning.
Witnesses looked on in horror as Alice Soto, who is deaf and speaks Spanish, along with her two young children, 7-year-old Annabelle and 6-month-old Amelia, waited for help on the balcony of the burning building at 68 West Newton St.
“My concern was that they would not be able to understand her, and to be up the ladder and not being able to communicate with the people who were helping you,” one witness said.
First responders used a ladder to rescue the trapped family.
“We just transferred them down the ladder to each other and then off to EMS,” Boston Fire Lt. Michael Guilfoyle said. “With the mom being deaf, I don’t know if she could read lips or not, but she probably understood what we were trying to say to her and she climbed over the balcony onto the sticks.”
Guilfoyle added that the family was “very brave.”
Soto and her children were taken to Massachusetts General Hospital with what firefighters described as minor injuries.
Soto’s sister, Katherine Santiago, said, “It’s really difficult. We already don’t know what to do…She’s a single mom.”
Speaking through an interpreter at the hospital as she underwent treatment for smoke inhalation, Soto said that she “was very scared” and “grateful to be alive.”
A total of eight people, two turtles, a cat and a dog have been displaced due to the fire.
Not all pets made it out of the building, fire officials said.
A GoFundMe has been created in support of the family.
The cause remains under investigation.
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