OSKALOOSA, Iowa - Two young brothers ran outside in the snow, barefoot, with no coats, yelling for neighbors to call 911 Friday night as flames and smoke filled the family home in Oskaloosa. Their 7-year-old brother David was trapped in the basement, and the boys' mother was trying to get to him
Next-door neighbor Dede Horn says she was watching television with her son when she heard the boys, called 911, and brought the six and nine-year-old boys inside her home.
Horn says the boys' mother, Angelia Wells came out of the house, hysterical, with burns on her arm, neck, and ears.
Firefighters were able to get to David, but he died at the Mahaska Health Partnership. Wells' husband was not home at the time of the fire.
“The mother and the father are just devastated, of course. The older boy, I think he is more in shock than the younger one. I don’t think he quite knows what's going on totally,” Horn tells WHO TV Channel 13.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.