RACINE, Wis.-- Racine firefighters rescued a 4-year-old child from a burning house in the 900 block of Birch Street around noon Tuesday. The fire started in the home at the corner of Birch and Ninth streets.
The child was transported to St. Mary's Medical Center.
Neighbors tried to help a mother and her two children from the burning home. The mother and a younger child escaped the home, but once firefighters arrived on the scene, they learned the 4-year-old was still inside.
"We hollered down to them that there was a baby in the house. They were on it. They did their job, I must say," neighbor Rasheik Simmons said of the Racine Fire Department.
Simmons, 32, a neighbor across the street, ran to the home with other neighbors when they noticed smoke pouring from the windows. Simmons said he broke one of the windows with a brick in an effort to rescue the family inside, but the flames were too fierce.
"It's a situation were you want to save someone, but you don't know what to do. It was scary. Your heart is beating," Simmons said.
After he realized the flames were too intense, Simmons and other neighbors had to restrain the mother from trying to run back into the house for her other child.
Republished with permission of the Journal Times.
