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CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : TUSTIN : Child Dies, 4 Saved in Apartment Fire

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From Times Staff and Wire Reports

A 4-year-old Tustin boy, trapped in the bedroom of a burning apartment, died as police restrained his father from rushing back into the smoke and flames to rescue him. The dead boy was identified by relatives as James De La Riva. Fire officials said the youngster was the only one of Joseph De La Riva’s five children he failed to rescue. The 28-year-old father managed to pull to safety his other three sons and a daughter, ranging in age from 2 to 7, after the apartment caught fire. “I could hear him. . . ,” a tearful De La Riva said of his son, James. “I opened the window and I heard him crying, ‘Dad, Dad!’ I knew he was only a few feet away. They told me I couldn’t go in . . . that there is too much smoke.”

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