New York Apartment Fire Injures 22, Including Infant

A fire erupted in an apartment on the Manhattan Upper East Side early on Tuesday, injuring 22 people. Two of them are in critical condition.

Reports indicate the fire began at 2 am on the 24th floor of a structure on East 72nd street.

The critically injured patients were unresponsive in a doorway where they seemed to have collapsed while trying to escape.

There was a door left open in the apartment where the fire began. It allowed the flames to spread to the hall.

Assistant Fire Chief, Joseph Ferrante claimed they had numerous phone calls from apartments above complaining about the smoke.

The reports also mentioned people trapped because of the fact the door was open. It was determined that if the door had been closed, the fire might have been contained to one room.

An infant was reportedly among the people that were injured in the fire.

The fire department said that besides the child, two adults are claimed to be in critical condition while four firefighters were also injured. Their injuries were minor, though.

It was not the only incident that happened in recent times. Another fire broke out in a building with the street number '666' in Hell's Kitchen causing smoke to billow out into the neighboring buildings.

The flames came up through the first floor of the five-story building on Ninth Avenue on the upper west side.

David Molano, a third-floor tenant, stated that his cat woke him up, and he opened the window to see smoke coming up from below. He immediately knew that something was wrong.

He was able to wake up his roommate and run out of the building. He claims he was overwhelmed with smoke and inhaled a lot of it so that he could not see anything in front of him.

The retail owners of establishments complained that everything seemed to be destroyed inside.

Several neighbors told media outlets they had also witnessed a woman sitting on the outside of her window on the fifth floor of the building.

Tom Currao, the Deputy Assistant Fire Chief, stated they managed to remove a victim from the ledge. He also added that quick action by the units was the reason they were able to get her down.

The decisive action of the New York Fire Department is the reason there were no casualties from the two recent incidents this year.