Three young children were critically injured during an early morning fire that started in the kitchen of their Southeast Washington apartment, authorities said.
The children — a 6-month-old girl, a 2-year-old girl and a 5-year-old boy — had been left unattended in the Pannell House apartment on the 1900 block of Naylor Road, District fire officials said. Their father asked a neighbor to check on them while he was at work and when she went to the door around 6 a.m. Wednesday, she found smoke seeping into the hallway and the doorknob hot.
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The neighbor called the fire department and firefighters found the children unconscious inside the second-floor unit, fire department spokesman Peter Piringer said. It’s not yet clear why the children were left without adult supervision. He said the cause of the fire still is under investigation.
Rescue workers performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on two of the children and were able to get their hearts beating again, authorities said. The three children were taken to Children’s National Medical Center in critical condition but were stable. They suffered from severe smoke inhalation, Piringer said.
Officials said their father has been notified and went to be with them at the hospital.
