Rochester, N.Y. - Testimony continued Thursday in the trial of a woman accused of leaving her three young children home alone on the night her apartment on Second Street caught fire.
A firefighter, visibly shaken, took the stand Thursday morning. He told the jury he rescued one of the children from behind a bed.
He testified the smoke was so heavy he used a flashlight to see.
He said he saw a pink hand sticking up from behind the bed and thought the child was white because of the hand, but when he got her outside, he realized it was a black child whose skin had burned off.
Nicole Allen also broke down in court Thursday as the prosecution showed pictures of her children, severely burned, at Strong Memorial Hospital.
Even some jurors couldn't hold back tears.
The photos were part of testimony from Dr. Marc Lampell, the first doctor to treat the children.
Lampell said their injuries were about as bad as it gets in burn cases. He said Kamari Allen Holmes suffered "full thickness burns" that burned off multiple layers of skin, exposing her to dangerous infections. She died several months later in the hospital from her injuries.
He said the two other children suffered similar burns, but not on as much of their body as Kamari
After Dr. Lampell's testimony he stopped briefly and spoke to Nicole Allen as he left the courtroom, and shared what he said were a few words of comfort with her.
“She's the mother of those three children,” Lampell said. “I'll let the legal wheels spin as they will. I look at it a little bit differently in that as a physician and as a human, whatever happens now she lost two years ago. I'm not sure that we can hurt her anymore.”
We also heard from the upstairs neighbor who first discovered the fire. She told the court that Nicole Allen never told her the children were in the apartment and that Allen collapsed in her arms when she arrived at the scene.
