NEW YORK (WCBS 880) -- New videos give a firsthand look at Sunday’s deadly fire at a high-rise apartment building in the Bronx.
Yesbely Fernandez, 27, shared the videos with WCBS 880's Marla Diamond as she returned to her building for the first time Tuesday to gather belongings.
Fernandez delivered a harrowing account of what it was like to be on the 15th floor as firefighters battled the flames below.
"We were scared. We called 9-1-1 at least a hundred times. 'Don't forget about us. We're upstairs. Please come help us,'" she said.
Fernandez, her boyfriend, his mother and two younger sisters stayed in their apartment until the smoke cleared.
Other residents panicked and ran into smoke-filled stairwells. Officials have said all 17 deaths—nine adults and eight children—were related to smoke inhalation.
"I'm looking out my window and next to me, this apartment is full of black smoke, and I'm like, 'Oh my god,'" Fernandez said. Video shows the view out her apartment window, with dozens of FDNY members on the street below.
Fernandez believes lives could've been saved if her neighbors had heeded the fire alarms and stayed in their apartments.
"The reason we got out is ‘cause we didn't panic as much," she said. "We wet our towels, we put it under the doors so the smoke would stop coming in."
While fire alarms did go off, Fernandez, who has lived in the building for eight years, said they were often ignored.
"We always think it's something false, but Sunday, it wasn't false, it was a real-life danger, and we didn't know," Fernandez said.
Videos from Fernandez show a soot-filled hallway and residents evacuating down a darkened stairwell as firefighters respond.
Officials investigating the fire are looking at space heaters in a second-floor duplex, as well as self-closing doors, at least one of which was said to be malfunctioning, allowing smoke to pour into hallways and stairwells and spread throughout the building.
The fire was contained to the second-floor duplex, and officials said residents can return, but Fernandez said the trauma of Sunday's fire has her looking for someplace else to live.
"I’m a little traumatized, it's a little bothering ‘cause my throat really hurts, like it's burning. It was a lot of smoke irritation, the inhalation was what scared me the most," she said.
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