Boy raises alarm despite burns to legs
The 9-year-old boy injured in a fatal fire in Hastings ran to a nearby car dealership to raise the alarm, despite serious burns to his legs.
A 10-year-old boy also caught in the fire was taken to hospital in a critical condition, and later died. A third boy escaped uninjured.
Sam Huckle, who works at Bayswater Vehicles, a few doors from the site of the fire, said two boys came running into the dealership on Monday.
One left and ran towards home, while Huckle tried to help the second, putting water on his burnt legs.
‘‘He started to say, ‘My cousin’s dead, my cousin’s dead’,’’ she said yesterday.
The boy then started to go into shock, and she talked to him and comforted him as they waited for an ambulance to arrive. The third boy did not appear to be burnt at all, but seemed panicked because ‘‘there was an explosion’’ and ran back to his home in Camberley.
The 10-year-old boy died in Hawke’s Bay Hospital early yesterday morning, police confirmed.
The 9-year-old was taken to Hawke’s Bay Hospital and has since been transferred to the burns unit at Hutt Hospital. He is in a stable condition.
Five men, thought to have headed into the blaze to help the boys, were taken to hospital with smoke inhalation, but were treated and discharged.
David Jones’ business, David Jones Motors, is next to the building that went up. Jones said he heard screaming then a loud ‘‘whoompf’’ before thick black smoke began billowing out of the building.
He said it happened within seconds, and he yelled out to one of his employees, who was a volunteer firefighter. ‘‘I yelled, there’s kids in one of those buildings, and it’s on fire, so he went around the back and we got hoses.’’
Jones understood it had been roading contractors from across the street, and staff or customers from Burger King, who had helped rescue the children.
He and his staff then got water on the building in an attempt to put the fire out, and said emergency services were on the scene within seconds. The fire broke out about 2.30pm on Monday in a disused garage.
Police were yet to speak to the people involved, and were still working out what had happened.