Woman who used a wheelchair dies in house fire in Golan town of Mas'ade

Update, 11 October, 12:07 Israel time

The woman who died used a wheelchair and was unable to get out of the burning house, according to Ynet. In a fuller article, Ynet reported that she became trapped in the home together with her wheelchair, could not escape the building, and was brought out in critical condition before MDA teams declared her dead following resuscitation efforts. Ynet describes her as a woman in her 60s, while MDA and other outlets give her age as about 60.

A second outlet, the Hebrew news site News.co.il, described the property as the woman's own home, calling the incident a tragedy in the northern Golan. Ynet's report also refers to a house within the Mas'ade local council area. Neither outlet attributes the detail about the house belonging to her to MDA or to the fire service.

Neither report names the woman, gives a cause for the fire, or says whether anyone else was in the house or was injured. There is still no statement from the fire service or police about how the fire began or whether an investigation has been opened.

The story as first reported

A woman of about 60 has died after being pulled from a burning home in Mas'ade, a town in the northern Golan Heights, according to Magen David Adom, Israel's national emergency medical service. MDA said its call centre received a report of a house fire in the town at 10:03, and that its medics and paramedics found the woman suffering from smoke inhalation and began resuscitation efforts on site.

In a follow-up statement, MDA said its teams declared her dead after those resuscitation attempts. The news site Ynet also reported the death, after first reporting that a woman aged 60 had been rescued from a fire in a building in the Golan Heights in critical condition.

How the rescue unfolded

The earliest report among the material came from Guy Varon, a correspondent for one of Israel's main television news channels. He reported that a woman had been brought out in critical condition from a structure that caught fire within the Mas'ade local council area, and that firefighters located her while searching the scene after they arrived. An edited version of his item added her approximate age and noted that MDA crews had performed resuscitation on her.

MDA's initial statement said the call came in to its 101 emergency line in its Jordan region, the administrative area that covers the north-east of the country, including the Golan. It described the incident as a fire in a house. MDA's second message, issued a short time later, confirmed that the woman had not survived.

There is a small difference in how the reports describe the property. MDA refers to a house, while Ynet and the television report use a more general word meaning a building or structure. None of the reports suggests the fire involved more than one property.

Who responded

Magen David Adom, whose name means Red Shield of David, is Israel's equivalent of a national ambulance service and is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Members of the public in Israel reach it by dialling 101. Its medics and paramedics respond to medical emergencies of all kinds, including fires, where they treat casualties once firefighters have brought them out of danger. In this case, according to the television report, it was firefighters who found the woman inside the burning building during their search, after which MDA teams took over her care.

Smoke inhalation, which MDA cited in its first statement, is a frequent cause of serious injury and death in residential fires, and it can incapacitate people before they are able to leave a building.

Where Mas'ade is

Mas'ade is one of the Druze communities in the northern Golan Heights, near the foot of Mount Hermon. The Druze are an Arabic-speaking religious community with populations in Israel, Syria and Lebanon. Mas'ade has the status of a local council, a municipal body that runs services for a single town, which is why the television report referred to the Mas'ade local council.

The Golan Heights is a plateau in Israel's far north, bordering Syria. Israel captured the area from Syria and later applied Israeli law there, a move that most of the international community has not recognised. Emergency services in the Golan, including MDA, operate as they do elsewhere in Israel.

What the reports do not say

None of the reports names the woman or gives any further detail about her beyond her approximate age. They do not say whether she lived in the house, whether anyone else was inside, or whether anyone else was hurt. No cause of the fire is given, and none of the organisations says whether police or fire investigators are examining how it started. The reports also do not describe how much damage the building suffered or how long it took firefighters to bring the fire under control. MDA indicated it would issue further updates, and its second statement confirmed the death, but no additional details about the circumstances appear in the material.