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tenants say owner of building was negligent in blaze last summer. |
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Three Allentown residents
injured in a fire last year have filed a civil suit against the building's
owner, claiming a disconnected smoke detection system failed to alert them in
time. |
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The suit, filed June 18 in
Montgomery County Court, says Robert Day of Harleysville was negligent because
he failed to test and maintain smoke detectors in the W. Gordon Street row
home. |
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Day could not be reached for
comment. |
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The suit was filed by Ismael
Montanez, 714 N. 12th St., and Leyda Perez and Randolph Acosta, 332 N. Ninth
St. They lived on the second and third floors of the apartment building at 721
W. Gordon St. |
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Montanez, Perez and Acosta and
their two children still suffer from both physical and emotional scars from the
fire, said attorney Bobbie Ann Thornburg of Philadelphia. |
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"The children are trying
to hold up the best they can, but they still get scared when they hear
sirens," Thornburg said Friday. "They have all been traumatized by
what they went through." |
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The building where Montanez,
Perez and Acosta lived had an interconnected alarm system, where an alarm
sounding in any of the units would trigger the others. |
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Building resident Richard Dale
Anderson, 40, admitted that months before the fire he disconnected two of the
smoke alarms because they would sound when someone was cooking. |
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Anderson, who lived in the
first floor, didn't start the June 21, 2003, fire, which began when children
living there lit stuffed animals under a bunk bed. |
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But because Anderson had
disconnected some of the detectors, a working alarm didn't sound until smoke
reached it. By that time, it was too late for some of the tenants to escape
without being injured, Thornburg said. |
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Anderson pleaded guilty in
February to seven counts of reckless endangerment. In April, he was
sentenced to 11/2 to three years in Lehigh County Prison. |
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Anderson is not named in the
civil suit. |
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Montanez suffered the most
serious injuries in the fire, Thornburg said. He is scarred on his neck, where
a breathing tube had to be inserted to keep him alive, and suffered from severe
smoke inhalation. |
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Thornburg said Montanez, a labourer,
is trying to return to work part time. |
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"If there is smoke or
excessive heat, it's very painful for him," she said. |
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The building had no fire escape
and when the fire broke out the stairwell filled with smoke. |
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Perez leaped from a
second-floor window to escape the flames and broke her ankle. |
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Acosta held his son, Randolph
Acosta Jr., out a second-floor window and dropped him to fire fighters below. |
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Acosta also had to leap from
the window and was in a coma for 15 days, the suit says. |
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The suit seeks damages in
excess of $50,000. Thornburg said medical bills for their injuries are in the
hundreds of thousands of dollars. |
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Neither Montanez, Perez nor
Acosta has medical insurance, Thornburg said. |
"We filed the suit because
they had substantial injuriesm and we feel like there was negligence that
caused that," Thornburg said.
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