In Chicago, a family spoke exclusively to ABC7 on Wednesday following a tragic incident where a 19-year-old woman with disabilities passed away, and a man was injured in a fire that occurred on the Northwest Side of the city.
According to the Chicago Fire Department (CFD), the fire ignited just before 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday in the second-floor unit of a residential building located in North Park, specifically in the 5200-block of North Bernard Street.
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The family of Sallina Sareth revealed to ABC7 that she lived with cerebral palsy, rendering her unable to speak or walk. At the time of the fire outbreak, she was at home with her father and nurse, and unfortunately, she was unable to escape her room when the fire quickly spread, trapping her inside.
“She can’t even say anything,” sister Rath Tep said. “How would we know? She must’ve suffered so much.”
There were gut-wrenching cries from her family as they walked through the burned remains of their apartment, and the bed where Sareth was found was left scorched.
“She’s like a daughter to me, because I’ve been watching her since I was young until now, and I’m not there when she needed me the most,” Tep said.
“The pain she must’ve felt,” brother Richard Sareth said. “And the thought that she was all alone in this situation.”
The 19-year-old woman was killed in the devastating fire Tuesday inside the family’s North Park apartment while she was home with her father and nurse. The flames somehow sparked in the front living room before quickly spreading.
“I said, ‘Please! I want inside to see my daughter. Please, let me in! Let me in!'” mother Samoeun Vuth said. “They said, ‘No!'”
The family said her father was able to get to her but needed help taking out her trachea tube. That’s when he tried to get the nurse’s help, who family members said was in another room before running out to safety.
“She was in a moment of panic, which made her leave our sister behind,” Richard Sareth said. “Because she wasn’t trained well, it cost the life of someone we loved.”
ABC7 has reached out to Aveanna Healthcare, the company the family said the nurse works for, but have not heard back.
The family is raising funds for her pending funeral through a GoFundMe page.
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