2 rescued after fire tears through home in Carteret
CARTERET (WABC) -- Firefighters successfully put out a fire in New Jersey that completely engulfed a home on Monday morning.
The fire broke out at the two-story split-level home on Capp Street and Jackson Avenue in Carteret around 5:30 a.m.
Two residents were rescued from the home by an off-duty Woodbridge police dispatcher who was driving by the scene. Authorities 25-year-old Eric Seniakevgch he had just left his girlfriend's house on his way to work when he saw the smoke.
He was able to pull the two people out a small basement window. The 51-year-old male victim sustained a severe laceration to his arm from breaking the window, before Seniakevgch, who has been on the force for two years, broke the window further and removed the couple.
"It's a very great feeling," he said. "I seen a column of smoke coming from the house up the block ahead. I asked, and they said two people trapped inside the basement. I just wanted to get a tunnel vision on the victims inside, and that's what I wanted to get. My adrenaline rushed in, and I lifted these guys out of the window. It was a great feeling."
A 50-year-old female also sustained some lacerations, as well as smoke inhalation. They were taken to Robert Wood Johnson Hospital for treatment.
Five other residents, all members of the same family, were able to escape the home when neighbors who spotted the smoke banged on their front door. The two people in the basement were trapped by fire in the stairwell.
NewsCopter7 arrived above the scene shortly after firefighters, who raced to get hoses connected up and down the street to get water on the fire.
The flames from the smoky blaze quickly changed to huge white plumes as crews got a quick handle on the fire.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, but it was possibly fueled by propane in the rear.
