A Cuddebackville man is in the hospital with serious injuries, according to his family, after they say he was trapped inside his burning mobile home and rescued by neighbors Tuesday night.
The second-alarm fire started at the mobile home on Swan Lane, at the Pine Grove Trailer Park, at approximately 10:30 p.m., according to the Cuddebackville Fire Department.
The victim is identified by family as 70-year-old Carl Boyce.
Neighbors tell News 12 they saw the fire, heard loud explosions and rushed to help.
“I was in the front window yelling for Carl and he’s yelling to me, ‘Help me! Help me! I can’t make it out,'” says Milbern Seed, who lives nearby and rushed to help. “My nephew ran in the and dragged him out into the snow.”
Cuddebackville fire officials tell News 12 that they are unaware of anyone injured in the blaze, but Boyce’s family say he’s hospitalized in intensive care. They say his nephew was also inside at the time of the fire and escaped, but that their dogs, “Rocco” and “Precious,” are missing.
“My sister drove him to the hospital. He didn’t want to go in the ambulance because his dogs were still missing,” says Boyce’s daughter, Samantha Johnson. “He has been admitted to the ICU and has a partially collapsed lung, his eyes were damaged and burned and he has frost bite on his right foot. He was barefoot and has carbon monoxide poisoning.”
Johnson says her father had his furnace serviced earlier in the day. Cuddebackville fire officials say the cause of the fire remains under investigation.
“It was scary. The house blew up,” says neighbor Sierra Seed. “My cousin saved one of his dogs, but they can’t find it.”
The mobile home was destroyed in the blaze.
“Definitely pray for him,” says Sierra Seed, “and his family.”