Trooper: Fire in rural Pa. farmhouse kills 7 kids

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BLAIN, Pa. – A fire at a farmhouse killed seven children Tuesday while their mother was in a barn milking cows and their father was taking a nap in a milk delivery truck, a state trooper said.


One child survived. Those who perished ranged in age from 7 months to 11 years.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110309/ap_on_re_us/us_deadly_farmhouse_fire

May their souls rest in peace, and may the Lord comfort the family, in Jesus' Name, amen!
 
I did not even want to read the whole article. Its just to horrible.

Why was the mom milking the cows in the barn at the same time the father left to pick up milk?

The father drove a short distance away to pick up milk and then parked the truck about a mile from home. Then, Pinkerton said, he nodded off.
 
Am I reading right that the mom RAN to the father's milk truck, parked a mile away (with him sleeping inside), instead of going to the house to get the children out? I don't throw any blame anywhere at all, God forbid something like this happened to our family, but what a strange decision! She must have been in extreme panic, I guess.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...ite_children_killed_in_pennsylvania_fire.html

This article says the family was Mennonite. I had thought at first maybe Amish except for the fact that the small children were watching tv. What a terrible tragedy. It sounds like the mama did the best she could, given that she alerted a neighbor to call 911 and then went for the dad. It sounds like the fire was very fast and on the ground floor, and she probably could not get in, herself. How horrible! Prayers for this family.
 
What a sad tragic event. I've been reading the mom did try to enter the home before running to help. I'm sure more details will come out later.

Trooper Tom Pinkerton says a 3-year-old girl escaped from the blaze to alert her mother, who police believe tried to get into the home before running to a neighbor's home for help.

I also understand that in the Mennanite community, families work around the clock to maintain their dairy business. This would make sense to me why the mom was out milking the cows.

MOO

Mel
 
Police said the fire started shortly after 10 last night in the two-story home on the working farm. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Sauder said he believes it started in the heating system. He said the family used propane because it was a difficult home to heat.

The victims, Sauder said, were: Christina, 11; Isabelle, 9; Brady, 7; Hannah, 6; Heidi, 4; Miranda, 1; and Samantha, 9 months. Three-year-old Leah survived.

Friends and neighbors, meanwhile, took care of the farm chores this morning.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/03/as_firetrucks_move_out_friends.html
 
I did not even want to read the whole article. Its just to horrible.

why was the mom milking the cows in the barn at the same time the father left to pick up milk?

the father drove a short distance away to pick up milk and then parked the truck about a mile from home. Then, Pinkerton said, he nodded off.


WHY??!! would a mother leave an 7 month old baby ALONE in the house??

it's obvious the other children couldn't care for the baby, they're all young.
why was a 2 and 3 year old awake at 10pm at night watching tv? that's awfully young, my kids would have been in bed long before that time!

sounds like the tv was the babysitter.

what was the older children doing? it mentioned an 11 year old girl, did they have a cell phone? the fire must have escalated very very quickly if the mother couldn't have called 911 from the house. i take it no phone in the barn.

my butt would have been up in that house trying to get the other children out.

it's odd that you have children ages 11,9,6,4 (or 3),7, only 2 yrs, and a baby either 11 or 7 months old??? and the youngest ones are still up at 10pm watching tv, did the older children fall asleep?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41983011/ns/us_news-life/

the article above lists the baby as 7 months. either way if you have a baby in the house, why in heck would the mother be out in the barn at 10pm and leave the baby unsupervised???? not to mention the other children??


something stinks here, i'm sure its another senseless tragedy, however had at least one parent been in the house (they have a baby for god's sake!) this whole thing could have been prevented.

i understand they are hard working and all that, however if you have an 7 or 9 or 11 month old baby in the house alone with a bunch of other young children... we all know the dangers of leaving a baby alone for a second.

the parents should have split there chore times so that an adult would be in the house with the baby.

the woman attempted to get in the house, then ran to her neighbors, then goes and runs a mile down the road to rouse the dad who nodded out in his farm truck. by the time they get back the house is fully engulfed in flames. now that's one fast fire!

my prayers for those poor children for got killed in the fire.
this whole thing could have been prevented. what kind of parents leave a tiny baby alone in the house? did they expect the 11 year old to play "mother"? this just isn't right..
 
i hate to rant on this however;

"Sauder said his daughter and son-in-law hadn't planned on such a large family, but welcomed the children."

i am a firm advocate of using birth control. it's obvious that they bit off more than they could chew to leave a baby alone in that house at night, lord knows anything could happen and it did.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/03/as_firetrucks_move_out_friends.html

according to this link, one of the other babies was only a year old, 1 year old miranda and 9 month old samantha. it really breaks my heart since this whole thing could have been prevented had either parent been actually watching the babies in the house. it's ridiculous!
 
Police said the fire started shortly after 10 last night in the two-story home on the working farm. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Sauder said he believes it started in the heating system. He said the family used propane because it was a difficult home to heat.

The victims, Sauder said, were: Christina, 11; Isabelle, 9; Brady, 7; Hannah, 6; Heidi, 4; Miranda, 1; and Samantha, 9 months. Three-year-old Leah survived.

Friends and neighbors, meanwhile, took care of the farm chores this morning.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/03/as_firetrucks_move_out_friends.html

I wonder if the "heating system" was a propane heater? If so those can explode and burn very very fast.
 
This is so awful and just breaks my heart. I grew up in a community with a large Mennonite population - wonderful people. I wouldn't bash the mom for leaving the baby inside: she was outside, not off at the store or something. Even the 3-yr-old knew where to find her. Plus an older child would have been perfectly capable of taking care of the baby if s/he had woken up and needed tending to. My brother and SIL have five children and the older ones help with the little ones quite a bit. In large families, that's the way it is. So I don't think this is a case of someone leaving their children unsupervised - different families operate different ways, kwim?

Propane is highly flammable/combustible - I think that's the real culprit here. :(
 
On Fox news they asked LE how did the 3 year old make it out and not the other children? LE states they are still investigating.

That was a good question b/c the 2 year old was with the 3 year old watching TV. I feel the 2 year old would have followed her sister outside. Right??

I also question why did the mom have to go up to his truck and bang on the truck windows? Wasn't she screaming???
 
IMO chemcopout, the mom was not in the barn.
 
Although some things do seem a bit irresponsible to me (2 and 3 year old watching tv at 10 p.m., neither parent in the home, and dad "dozing off" in his truck), I'm not really sensing anything intentional.

One thing about propane, once it's burning, everything is burning. Highly, highly combustible stuff.

My yard here is pretty small, but I can't tell you the number of times that I have gone outside to do something, once the kids are asleep. (Mind you, asleep.) Either pick up some trash, rake some leaves, whatever. Are the kids homeschooled? If not, how could the older kids be expected to watch the younger ones, and still make it to school?

Why was the father asleep in his truck a mile away? Don't get me wrong, with that many kids, I could undersatnd being exhausted all the time, but...And then the mother runs that mile to get him? Instead of breaking a window and screaming for her kids? Instead of continuing to try to get in? Instead of running for a hose?

Like I said, I don't think it was intentional, but there is so much that went wrong here. SO much. I worry about the three year old, the one that got out. Hopefully she is too young for survivor's syndrome, but if it does hit her, it will likely hit her hard later in life.
 
In the article, it states that the family was not Mennonite.
I find it odd, too, that a 3 year old would have the wherewithall to go outside and get mom, but the older kids stayed in the house.

Being up at 10 pm watching tv...well, it sounds like this family was overworked if Dad is driving a route at 10 pm and Mom is in the barn, milking cows (that's really late to be milking cows). I guess their family structure wasn't the kind where the kids are in bed by 8 pm. Mine aren't....and I don't have milking cows for an excuse. Then again, they're not up at 10 pm watching cartoons, either, but they HAVE been, due to not feeling well, or getting too late of a nap earlier in the day. This could have been a one-time flukey-thing. Milking cows at 10 pm makes me think that. Maybe something happened that just totally threw their whole day off. But cows HAVE to be milked, and if Dad isn't there to do it, someone has to. The mom couldn't just leave the cows to suffer until the morning milking.

Again, we don't know their family dynamics, but perhaps she felt the older children could keep an eye on the younger children while she was out milking. I'm sure she'd retract that decision now, if she could.
 
A horrible accident imo. The parents were not out partying or being irresponsible.
 
:waitasec: How did the mom know the dad was napping at a certain spot in his milk truck a mile away?
 
Seven children killed in a Pennsylvania farmhouse fire last night were found in their bedrooms and a crib, the Perry County coroner said. Their parents were not in the Southwest Madison Township house when the fire broke out around 10 last night; their mom, Janelle Clouse, was in a dairy barn close to the house milking cows, and their father, Ted Clouse, was working.

Ted Clouse was at Mike Trout's farm when the fire broke out. In addition to running his farm, Clouse picks up milk for other dairy farmers and delivers it, Trout said.

"It takes about an hour to pick up at my farm," Trout said. It was Ted's routine to take a nap while the truck was loading, Trout said.

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/03/pennsylvaia_farmhouse_fire_kil.html
 
:waitasec: How did the mom know the dad was napping at a certain spot in his milk truck a mile away?

I don't believe she knew he was "dozing off", but she did know his route, and she knew that he'd be at that particular farm, at that particular time.
 
A horrible accident imo. The parents were not out partying or being irresponsible.

Indeed.

I think it's often easier to criticize people for their child bearing and rearing choices when tragedy takes their children away than to stare face-to-face at the cold hard truth that something random, terrifying and unstoppable could happen to our own children.
 

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