75-year-old dies of smoke inhalation
A 75-year-old Canton Township woman injured in a house fire Wednesday morning died of smoke inhalation Thursday morning in a Pittsburgh hospital.
Canton fire Chief Dave Gump said he got a call from the Allegheny County medical examiner’s office that Hazel Day died. She was pronounced dead at 4:12 p.m. at UPMC-Mercy hospital’s burn unit of smoke inhalation, according to a spokesman for the Allegheny County medical examiner’s office. Her death was ruled accidental.
Firefighters were called to her home at 42 Paul St., which had been a personal care home, in the township’s Wolfdale neighborhood just before 11 a.m. after the fire was spotted.
Gump said the fire likely started in a chair in a front bedroom, possibly from a lit cigarette. Day had a weak pulse when she was found in a back bedroom. She was taken to Washington Hospital before being transferred to Mercy.
Men working at a house across the street used a garden hose to extinguish the flames coming from the front of the house. Gump said their actions and those of other first responders gave Day a fighting chance.
Until about two years ago, Day operated a personal care home with about eight patients at the residence. She also owned several other personal care homes in the Washington area.
Washington and South Strabane Township firefighters assisted at the scene. The state police fire marshal is investigating the cause of the fire.