MANCHESTER, N.H. - A teen-age boy and a firefighter with 16 years on the job were killed Saturday morning in a fire that heavily damaged a three-family home.
The boy's younger brother was hospitalized Saturday in critical condition. Their mother, Bernice Flannery, told WMUR-TV that Patrick, 17, could have escaped but he ran back inside to try to save his 12-year-old brother, Mathew.
Firefighters found the older boy dead inside, deputy fire chief David Albin said.
The others living in the home, including the boys' mother and another sibling, were able to escape without serious injury, Albin said. He said all 10 people who lived there were home when the fire broke out.
''We were sleeping and my sister said, 'The alarm is on,' and I woke up my father and he went out across (the street) to see if he could help,'' said 11-year-old neighbor Deyanira Flores. ''He tried to push open the door and was pushed back by the smoke.''
Firefighter David Anderson, 43, had gone inside the house to try to rescue the boys, Albin said, but after Anderson came back out, he sat down on the back of a fire truck, then collapsed and died. The causes of his and Patrick Flannery's deaths weren't immediately known, but officials said Anderson was in good health.
It was the first death of a firefighter on duty in Manchester in at least a quarter of a century.
''I don't think it's really sunk in yet. Firefighter deaths are difficult enough, and especially when it's one of your own,'' Albin said. ''This close to the holiday is crushing.''
