Above: A video of the blaze that killed a three-year-old boy in Liberty on Sunday, August 17. Source: Vos Iz Neias News.
A three-year-old Orthodox Jewish boy from Brooklyn died in a fire in a Liberty bungalow colony last night, according to the New York State Police.
First responders arrived at Camp Mareh Yechezkel on Route 55 in Liberty around 10:15 p.m. on Sunday, August 17 to find a burning bungalow and reports that a child was trapped inside, according to the State Police press release:
Responding Troopers were informed that a three year old boy was trapped inside of a burning bungalow and entered the building in an attempt to locate the child, only to be forced back by smoke and flames. Fire Departments from Liberty, White Sulphur Springs, Swan Lake, Monticello, and Livingston Manor responded and were able to extinguish the fire. Investigators located the body of the three year old child in a rear bedroom.
Vos Iz Neais and MidHudsonNews.com identified the child as Aron Follman of Borough Park, Brooklyn.
Vos Iz Neais had more details about the blaze:
Aron’s mother managed to rescue two of her three children from the burning bungalow and his father, Shlomo Avraham Follman was present at the time the fire broke out. Both Hatzolah members and state troopers tried to rescue the toddler from the blaze. All four were transported to Catskill Regional Medical Center in Harris.
“Both Sergeant Richard [White] and Trooper Dwight Herman from nearby Troop [F] in Liberty tried so hard to get him out,” Yanky Meyer of Misaskim told VIN News. “They tried feverishly to get into the building. They tried from the front. They tried from the back. They tried from the neighbor. They just didn’t stop.”
Mid-Hudson News spoke with Sullivan County Emergency Services Commissioner Richard Martinkovic, who said that no smoke alarms were installed in the building:
“Especially near sleeping areas because even though the mother was present in the building, the earlier detection of the smoke when it first started would have probably given some additional time to have that child removed from the room, which unfortunately did not happen,” he said.
Correction: There were several errors in Vos Iz Neais's report, which we quoted from in this post. One of the state troopers on the scene of the fire was Sergeant Richard White of Troop F, not Sergeant Richard Wright of Troop S. This post has been corrected.
