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by WIL CRUZ AND BETH HOLLAND
STAFF WRITERS, Staff writer Sean Gardiner and freelance writer Brian Boyd contributed to this story.
A 2-year-old girl pulled from her family's burning Bronx apartment by a fire captain died Friday night, several hours after her brother was found dead, wrapped in a curtain in the apartment.
Sachiel Sanclemente died at New York Weill Cornell Medical Center from injuries suffered in the fire, a hospital spokeswoman said. Firefighters had found her brother, Sam Sanclemente, 10, wrapped in the curtains in his bedroom after he vainly tried to escape the inferno.
Their mother, Serena Sanclemente, 35, was in critical condition at the hospital.
The three were at home when the 7:46 a.m. blaze began, probably in a faulty electrical outlet in the living room on the fourth floor, fire officials said. A television had been plugged into that outlet, the officials said.
"No one seems to know how that captain got through the wall of flames," Lt. Paul Iannizzotto, a department spokesman, said of Capt. Michael McAndrew, who carried Sachiel from the fifth floor of 3034 Kingsbridge Terrace.
Assistant Chief Joseph Callan, the department's Bronx borough commander, said the fire was so intense it blew out the apartment's windows and firefighters were searching in "almost zero visibility."
Sam, an altar boy at nearby Our Lady of Angels Church and a fifth-grader in the church school, was pronounced dead on arrival at Montefiore Medical Center.
Sam Sanclemente, Selena's husband and the children's father, who works as a livery driver, arrived home at 8:45, about 15 minutes after the fire was brought under control, neighbors said. He appeared to be dazed and in shock, they said.
Selena Sanclemente's screams of "Help! Call 911! Get the kids!" broke the morning quiet in the Kingsbridge section, neighbors said.
At 7:50, fire trucks roared up to the building, where the Sanclemente family lives in connected apartments on the fourth and fifth floors. It is on a hill, and the mother was outside in the back yard, where the higher floors are much closer to the ground.
"She was burned," said Noel Castro, 33, a neighbor. "It looked like she took in a lot of smoke."
The living room, where the fire is believed to have started, is on the fourth floor with the kitchen and dining room, and three bedrooms are on the fifth floor. To get to the bedrooms, Callan noted, firefighters had to "slide by" flames and smoke on the fourth floor.
They found Sachiel at 7:57 in a fifth-floor bedroom at the back of the building. McAndrew carried her out, suffering burns to his hands and legs, with flames burning through his protective gear.
Another group of firefighters, after rushing up the apartment stairs to the fifth floor, could not at first locate Sam. At 8:09, they found him wrapped in the curtain beside his bedroom window.
"Somehow the child wrapped himself up in the curtain and that delayed discovery," Callan said.
The fire was brought under control at 8:30 a.m. Ten firefighters were injured, with McAndrew, who has been with the department for 10 years, suffering second- and third-degree burns. Other firefighters had less serious burns or lacerations, officials said.
Callan, after visiting McAndrew, who was in stable condition last night at New York Weill Cornell Medical Center, said the captain told him: "We gave it our best shot ... And unfortunately, it couldn't prevent the burns to the infant and her mother."
Callan said McAndrew, a covering captain for the department's 7th Division who Friday was working with Ladder Company 46, was "concerned more about the victims than he is about himself."
Sam Sanclemente, the father, talked at the hospital with relatives of McAndrew, who lives in Seaford, Callan said.
"What he did was just doing his job. He's not looking at himself like a hero," Callan said. "He did a fine job. He did anything anybody could have asked of him."
Johanna Wong, a cousin of the father, said Sam and Selena Sanclemente came to the United States about 15 years ago from Ecuador.
Selena Sanclemente works in the Little Angels Family Group Day Care center in the basement of the building, officials said. The center was closed Friday because of the holiday.
The Rev. Bob Ritchie, a priest at Our Lady of Angels, remembered Sam's baptism in 1995 and his service the past two years as an altar boy.
Sam knew a big Mass was being held on Monday, in recognition of Thanksgiving, Ritchie said. The boy went to Ritchie and said, "Can I serve?"
"It was typical of him not to wait for someone to be called," the priest said, "but to be the first one to ask."
Staff writer Sean Gardiner and freelance writer Brian Boyd contributed to this story.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc
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