Dramatic bodycam video captured desperate cops scrambling to find fire hydrants buried in 29 inches of snow as they tried to tackle a house inferno that left a mom and her 2-year-old with “life-threatening” burns.
Footage obtained by MassLive showed officers carrying out door-to-door evacuations — and frantically asking to be pointed to the nearest hydrants — as the gas-explosion-fueled blaze raged Feb. 25 in Taunton, Mass.
“Hey, where are the hydrants at? You know where the hydrants are?” one of the officers was heard shouting.
Cops continued to hunt for the fire hydrants while ordering locals out of their homes amid fears the flames could spread to other properties.
“Hey, we need everyone out of the house,” an officer told a resident.
Firefighters eventually found a hydrant — 5 minutes after the first cops arrived on the scene, according to the law-enforcement website Police1.
Crews started tackling the blaze at 9:58 a.m., 10 minutes after police arrived.
The blast left Lucitha Blanc, 25, and her daughter Jenelle Germilus, 2, seriously injured with what police described as “life-threatening” burns.
Blanc was cooking pancakes for Jenelle when she switched the stove on, and it exploded, as reported by NBC10.
Shnider Germilus thought his girlfriend and their daughter had died in the inferno after video of the fire circulated on social media.
“I almost lost them you know, but you know God saved them,” he said.
The mom and daughter survived, but the blast gutted the inside of their home.
“Everything is completely gone and ruined throughout the whole house,” Blanc’s neighbor Jacinda Jones told CBS News.
A natural-gas leak was identified as the cause behind the blast.
No foul play was suspected, but the amount of snow is believed to have hindered the emergency services’ response, according to WCVB.
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