Seven children, aged from 2 to 10 years, lived minutes of terror.
Last Friday night, the second floor of their house burst into flames in Desamparados.
The children were completely alone. Apparently, one of them was playing with a lighter, which would have been the cause of the incident.
When they were already surrounded by the flames, it was the neighbors who helped them out.
Three of them, the oldest ones, had a crisis of anxiety. According to the Fire Department report, the remaining 4 had smoke inhalation injuries.
The children’s mothers, who would be cousins, arrived about 20 minutes after being rescued and the fathers 20 minutes later.
Since they are all minors, firefighters called the National Children’s Board (PANI), who ruled out that there has been negligence.
The mother went out to buy food and asked the neighbors to take care of them,
said Fanny Cordero, a spokeswoman for the PANI.
However, Jose Pablo Villalta, head of the central Fire Station, said that the neighbors were annoyed because the children were alone.
If the neighbors had not been there, the children would have passed away,
said Villalta.
The children were assisted by firefighters and did not need to be transferred to a hospital.
The fire was controlled a few minutes later.