By Mitchell Willetts
The Herald
LEBANON, Pa. — An EMT responding to a deadly fire at a birthday party found her 4-year-old daughter among the victims, Pennsylvania officials say.
The Sept. 28 house fire killed five people in Lebanon, striking during a family’s birthday celebration, the Lebanon Daily News reported. Two adults and three juveniles died as a result of the blaze.
Azelyn Arenas, an EMT and a mother, responded to the scene along with her crew at 8:43 a.m., First Aid and Safety Patrol officials said in a Facebook post. The tragedy became very personal.
“Upon arrival, units encountered multiple patients,” and Arenas’ daughter, Veyda, was one of them, officials said. Veyda died from her injuries.
“There are no words to capture the pain of losing a child, and no words to describe the heartbreak of being an emergency responder faced with your own child as a victim,” officials said.
“(Veyda was) the light in every room, our baby, our only child, & we’ll forever miss her,” a GoFundMe page read.
A prayer vigil was held in Lebanon on Monday, Sept. 29, to remember the victims: 4-year-old Veyda Pereyra, 1-year-old Amarri Morris-Rodriguez, 17-year-old Jaeden Nunez, Tailing Nunez, 23, and 73-year-old Josefina Estevez, WHTM reported.
“I’ve never seen such a tragedy,” Gregg Smith, executive director of First Aid and Safety Patrol, told WGAL. “When you take an employee, a first responder, who has to respond to their own child, words can’t describe the nightmare scenario this truly is.”
“Remember that when the music stops two weeks from now and this is no longer in the news, people are still hurting,” he said, speaking to the community. “And don’t forget your first responders.”
Investigators said the source of the fire was an electrical outlet in a first-floor living room, and the cause has been determined accidental, Lebanon Daily News reported.
Lebanon is a roughly 90-mile drive northwest from Philadelphia.
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