Toddler killed, 2 injured in Prospect Heights house fire

A young boy was killed and his father and sibling were injured early Saturday in a house fire in Prospect Heights, authorities said.

Alex Jedd was pronounced dead at 4:12 a.m. at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, hospital officials said.

Hospital officials reported the boy's age as 4, but the Cook County medical examiner's office said he was 3. An autopsy is scheduled for today.

Hospital officials also reported the victim's father and another child, who was 9 months old, were taken for treatment to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. Officials said they had no personal information to release about those patients.

The fire was reported at 3:24 a.m. at 202 S. Maple Lane. The one-story, 55-year-old house is in an older neighborhood that isn't equipped with fire hydrants, so water had to be trucked to the scene, Prospect Heights Fire Capt. Mark Oeltgen said.

The first firefighters on the scene met a male resident in front of the house, and he said a child was inside. He had a second child with him, Oeltgen said.

Firefighters searched the house and found Alex Jedd. No one else was inside.

No information was immediately available about the survivors' conditions Saturday.

Crews from 11 area departments battled the blaze, which was contained to the house and under control within 15 minutes, firefighters said.

Melissa Lorek, who lives nearby, said her dog's barking woke her and alerted her to the activity down the street.

Initially concerned the fire was at her mother's home, she raced down the street and saw flames shooting out of the windows and doors of the victims' home.

"I saw the firefighters running in and out of there," Lorek said. "It scared me to death. It was awful."

Lorek said she saw firefighters performing CPR on one of the victims for about five minutes before that person was loaded into an ambulance and taken away.

Rob Waters lives across the street from the house that burned. He woke up to hear the sound of crying and went outside with his wife, Adrienne, to investigate.

"There were flames shooting out of the house, and there was smoke all over the place," Waters said.

Waters later realized the sound he'd heard was the father of the victim. He said he didn't know the family very well.

Waters praised the firefighters for working quickly to extinguish the fire, as well as their efforts to try to save the victims' lives.

He said he brought the firefighters a cooler of iced bottled water for relief.

"It was a tough evening," Waters said.

The cause of the blaze was not immediately known. The fire is under investigation.

• Daily Herald staff writer Eric Peterson contributed to this report.