Small child, two adults in Kittanning, PA, house fire killed

Megan Guza

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

(TNS)

February 24 – Two adults and a toddler died in a massive house fire in Kittanning early Monday, while two young boys and the family who lived on the other side of the duplex escaped.

The forensic doctor of Armstrong County identified the adults as Kayla Whittaker, 28, her 3-year-old son Ryland Whittaker and 26-year-old Jason C. Blystone Jr.

Neighbors said that two of Ms. Whittaker's children aged 9 and 5 came out of the house and alerted their neighbors on the fire.

“Little superheroes,” she called a neighbor.

The woman, who lives and asked two doors from the duplex, not to be identified by names, said she woke up before screaming to one of her neighbors. She said that she went outside to a cloud of smoke and the two boys on the street. The children had already called 911.

She said that the house in the North Grant Avenue was quickly devoured and she pulled the two children in her own house. They colored and played with Legos, she said, and she tried to distract her from the horror two doors.

“Let them be children because I know that the moment when they left behind has disappeared childhood,” she said.

She also had the difficult task of calling the boy's father from whom she said he was not in the city to tell him that the house was on fire.

“I told him the boys are here, they are safe, they ate breakfast and they were children for a few hours before the adult's life had to occur,” she said.

She said that the boys hadn't even asked about their toys or Xbox – just when they could go home and when their mother came to get them.

“The house opened so quickly. For [the boys] To run out of your house to ask the neighbor's house to get outside, go down here and make sure that we are okay – I mean you are 9 and 5, “she said.

She said she believed that the boys had saved her neighbors in the duplex.

Janet Kasprack is one of these neighbors in the duplex. She told the Post Gazette news partner KDKA-TV that she tapped one of the boys on her door. She said the boy told her that his steps were on fire. Ms. Kasprack said what started as a little fire on the steps “like crazy”.

Ms. Kasprack told the television channel that she had run back to help her husband, who uses a wheelchair, from the house.

“We brought him to the veranda and [police and paramedics] I just grabbed him out of his power wheelchair and put him on a stretcher, “she said.” And then he held his wheelchair from the veranda. “

Scott Kline, head of the Kittanning Hose Company 6, told Kdka, the first began near the rear of the duplex and spread from there. He said two firefighters were injured when they fell through the second floor. They were treated in the Armstrong County Memorial Hospital.

“It is a deep tragedy, especially for a small community,” said the boss. “There are times when you drive past and see that children play on the street. It's probably only about six houses from my house.”

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