Seven children die in apartment blaze

Seven children – all related – died when fire raged through an apartment in Toledo, Ohio.

The victims – six girls and one boy – were between six months and seven years old and all but one were siblings. The seventh was a cousin. There were no adults in the apartment when the fire broke out

Several people who heard the screams of the children tried to save them but were beaten back by the flames.

Joe Jaramillo, who had been visiting his daughter in the area, ran into the two-storey building and tried to get upstairs where the children were trapped, as the mother of some of the children stood outside screaming that her babies were inside.

Jaramillo, 36, climbed the staircase with smoke searing his eyes and the cries of seven trapped children ringing in his ears. But he couldn’t get any closer.

“They were yelling ‘Help us!’ but I couldn’t do anything. I had to come back for air,” he said.

Jaramillo said the father of one of the children had tried to go upstairs with a fire extinguisher, “but it didn’t work.” He and the father tried to go up the stairs a second time, but the smoke and flames were too thick.

“Then it was just quiet,” Jaramillo said.