The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Mayor Bill de Blasio says it is “not acceptable” that ambulances were slow to respond to a fire in Queens that killed two 4-year-old siblings and injured their sister over the weekend.
De Blasio said Tuesday he expects a quick resolution to the internal investigation into the fire, which broke out Saturday just before midnight at a home in Far Rockaway.
“I’m very, very concerned,” de Blasio said. “Certainly, the preliminary reports are troubling.”
The 911 call came in at 11:51 p.m., CBS 2 reported. An ambulance was dispatched 14 minutes after the call and took seven minutes to arrive at the scene, a Fire Department spokesman said.
Four-year-old Jai’Launi Tinglin and his 4-year-old half-sister, Aniya, were killed. Jai’Launi’s twin sister, Lai’ Launi, is hospitalized in stable condition along with their 63-year-old grandfather and a 55-year-old aunt.
Authorities said it was accidentally started by the children playing with a lighter.
Neighbors also want to know why it took 21 minutes for ambulances to get to the scene.
“I think if they got here at the same time, maybe those kids would still be alive today,” said neighbor Lisa Morales.
“They took too long to get here,” Shakeea White, a neighbor who called 911. “It took them a very long time. The kids was laid out on the sidewalk and everything. They took way too long.”
“The EMTs took forever to come,” said neighbor Megan Maloney. “The firemen are trying to work hard enough to get this one alive and they’re screaming, cursing, ‘Where’s the EMS?’ Where’s the EMS?’”
Fire Commissioner Sal Cassano said it is standard operating procedure for firefighters to respond and confirm a working fire before calling an ambulance just in case it’s a false alarm.
“It wasn’t dispatched at that time and we’re looking at why and we’re looking at the reasons if there was a delay,” he said.
Cassano said he’s in the process of heading up the probe and said investigators are reviewing dispatch calls in hopes that it will shed some light about the apparent delay.
The mayor also said the city’s 911 system must constantly be monitored. As public advocate, he frequently expressed concerns about delays within the dispatching system.
“I want to get down to the bottom of this right away,” he said. “If we have to make some changes, we’re going make some changes in terms of how we do this work because we have to know that each and every time the ambulance will get there as quickly as humanly possible.”
Cassano is a holdover from Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration. He is serving on an interim basis and will be replaced.