Delaware County fire leaves woman in critical condition

A fire that sent a woman to the hospital is under investigation in Delaware County.

The neighbors say thick smoke filled the area near the house.

Debbie O'Brien, a neighbor, said, "I looked out the door, there's flames coming out of the chimney, the back, the front is full of smoke. It was a lot of smoke, it covered the whole street, the whole back, the whole park. It was pretty fully engulfed."

The fire at the corner of Llanwellyn and King Avenues in Folcroft moved through the house fast. A woman on the second floor was not able to get out, and was discovered by firefighters.

"A female, I don't know the age or the name, was found inside the residence, unconscious. They performed CPR, the EMTs were here. They transported her to the hospital," Robert Ruskowski, the Folcroft Police Chief, said.

Now she is at Crozer-Chester Medical Center in critical condition. No one else was inside the house at the time, and there were no other injuries.

Neighbors say the man who owns the property hadn't been seen there in several months, but other people seemed to come and go.

"I know we see people going in and out the back door sometimes, that don't live there. But, it's been abandoned for a while," O'Brien stated.

Investigators are now looking for a cause of the fire, including the possibility of arson.

"We don't know. We're hearing different stories when we got down here from people talking, but we're not sure. They're gonna look into that. They're gonna bring an arson dog in here. They do a lot of things to verify that first," Chief Ruskowski explained.

Neighbors say firefighters pulled a cat from the fire. They used CPR and were able to resuscitate it, providing a bright spot in an otherwise scary situation.