Orange : Children Saved From Car Reported Improving
Three Fullerton children who suffered burns and smoke inhalation when the car in which they had been left unattended caught fire are doing better, according to officials at UCI Medical Center.
Hospital spokeswoman Kathryn Alton said that breathing apparatuses were removed Friday from Guillermo Clausell, 3; his sister, Natasha, 4, and Rashim Bolder, 20 months, and that they were breathing on their own.
The three children suffered second-degree burns Tuesday afternoon when Guillermo Clausell, playing with a cigarette lighter, ignited the interior of the car. Clausell’s mother, Sadie Smith, 23, said she had left her two children and Rashim, her nephew, for “just five or 10 minutes” in order to visit a sick friend at Coastal Communities Hospital in Santa Ana.
A hospital security guard noticed smoke coming from the parking lot and rescued the children from the burning automobile.
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