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Teenager critically injured in Dorchester blaze

E-mail|Link November 12, 2009 07:47 PM

Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff

A firefighter at the scene tonight

By Abbie Ruzicka, Globe Correspondent

A 14-year-old girl was seriously hurt when a two-alarm fire raced through a building on Evans Street in Dorchester late this afternoon.

The teenager was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital, where she is in critical condition, Boston Fire Department spokesman Steve MacDonald said. Her twin brother and an adult woman were taken to Boston Medical Center. Their conditions were not immediately available.

MacDonald said that flames were shooting out of the two-and-a-half-story, wood-framed, two-family home at 81-83 Evans Street when firefighters arrived at 4:39 p.m.

The boy and the woman, who was babysitting the two twins, were out front, screaming, saying the girl was still inside the house. When firefighters went into the home, they encountered heavy smoke. They found the girl lying unconscious in a first-floor hallway, picked her up, brought her outside and started CPR, MacDonald said.

Firefighter Mike Sameski said he crawled on his hands and knees into the building. "It was pitch-black so we got on the ground because you couldn't see anything," he said.

He said that when he pulled the girl from the building, she was not breathing. He said he performed CPR for two minutes and she resumed breathing.

Asked if he was proud of reviving the girl, he said, "This is what we're supposed to do."

The girl was taken to a hyperbaric chamber at the hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation, MacDonald said.

The blaze was brought under control within a half-hour.