Nashville apartment fire kills baby, injures 5 children, while mothers were at nightclub
The apartment fire killed an eight-month-old baby. (AJ Abell, Fox 17 Nashville)
FOX NEWS - An early morning fire on Sunday killed an eight-month-old baby and injured five small children in Tennessee, while their mothers were at a nightclub, investigators said.
The mothers, ages 25 and 23, went to the club on Saturday night and police were trying to determine if a babysitter was hired to watch over their children while they were gone, according to a news release from the Metro Nashville Police Department.
Police said a babysitter was not present when first responders arrived at the home.
Nashville firefighters responded to the Hickory Lake Apartments in Antioch, Tenn., about a 20-minute drive from Nashville, around 2 a.m. Sunday for an apartment fire, according to a news release from the Nashville Fire Department.
The first unit to arrive on scene found heavy smoke and flames coming from one of the apartments in the complex, fire officials said.
They said dispatch had informed arriving firefighters that several people were trapped inside the burning apartment. Firefighters quickly rescued one person from a balcony on the third floor.
One witness said a 6-year-old boy ran out of the apartment screaming that his siblings were trapped inside the burning apartment, police said. Firefighters then rushed in and were able to rescue four of them, fire officials said.
“Unfortunately an eight-month-old baby did not survive the fire and died on the scene,” the news release from the Nashville Fire Department said.
The four children were rushed to the hospital. Firefighters later found another child, a five-year-old, who also was transported to a nearby children’s hospital.
Police have identified the baby killed in the fire as Jream Jenkins and said her brother, a 2-year-old, was in the hospital in critical condition. Police said they both lived in the apartment.
The other four children hospitalized, who were in the apartment at the time of the fire, are siblings between six and one years old and are from Linden, Tenn., which is about an hour-and-a-half drive from Nashville, according to police. The conditions of the four other children were unclear.
The children's mothers came back to the apartment complex after firefighters and police officers were already there, police said.
Fire officials said they were able to contain the fire to one apartment and only one area of the apartment complex suffered smoke damage.
The American Red Cross is helping eight families affected by the fire with temporary housing and other resources, a spokeswoman told Fox News.
Fire officials said the department’s arson investigators were working to determine what caused the fire. Police said the Tennessee Department of Children's Services has been contacted and is investigating.
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