UPDATE: 3 kids rescued from Cannon Falls apartment fire in medically induced coma
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(ABC 6 News) – UPDATE 4/20/23: The Cannon Falls Police Department (CFPD) released an update on the condition of the children from an apartment fire that occurred on Wednesday afternoon.
The CFPD said they were given the update by the children’s father. The children have been stabilized and placed into a medically induced coma and are being treated in the burn unit.
As previously reported, the three children, as well as their mother, were hospitalized Wednesday. The three kids were trapped inside the apartment when it caught fire and were all eventually found by first responders.
The kids were brought to the hospital in critical condition, and their mother was treated for an arm injury.
No other information was provided by Cannon Falls police.
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(ABC 6 News) – Three children and their mother were taken to a hospital Wednesday after a fire broke out inside a Cannon Falls apartment building.
Multiple children and their mother were taken to a hospital Wednesday after a fire broke out inside a Cannon Falls apartment building.
At approximately 1:14 pm, emergency personnel were called to Cannon Valley Apartments, located in the 1200 block of 1st St. North.
Cannon Falls Police Chief Jeff McCormick says officers were told while en route that flames were visible from outside and kids were still inside. When they arrived, a woman told officers that her kids were still inside and she’d cut her arm trying to get them out.
After officers started breaking out windows, McCormick says a couple of the kids were spotted in a living room area. They were taken out to ambulances as firefighters arrived and started working to extinguish the fire.
“I broke out the window on the second bedroom hoping to see them, all I could see was the corner of a bunk bed, the smoke was so thick you couldn’t see more than about 6 inches into the apartment.”
The chief says a third child was then found inside and brought to safety.
“It’s very hard in this line of work, we deal with a lot of things, but children take a special place,” McCormick said, adding that they weren’t initially too responsive and his heart “just drops.” However, he credited the work of the paramedics at the scene with helping the children.
“When (the firefighter) called out an all-stop and said he found the third child, boy, it was really a powerful moment,” McCormick added.
All three kids were taken to a hospital, as was the mother. Their ages weren’t immediately clear but police estimated one was less than a year old, another was 1 to 2 years old and the third was 7.
McCormick said the kids were all in critical condition and the mother’s injury looked “pretty significant.”
The children were also airlifted to another hospital after initially being taken from the scene by ambulance, according to the police chief.
No other injuries were reported.
The apartment has been deemed uninhabitable and the Red Cross has responded to see if they need to provide shelter for any of the displaced residents, McCormick said. Nobody is being allowed into any of the 12 units at this point.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.