Family speaks out after disabled woman killed in fire at North Park home | EXCLUSIVE

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A Chicago family spoke exclusively with ABC7 Wednesday after a 19-year-old woman with disabilities died and a man was injured in a fire on the city's Northwest Side.

CFD said the fire started just before 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in the second-floor unit of a North Park residential building in the 5200-block of North Bernard Street.

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Sallina Sareth's family told ABC7 she lived with cerebral palsy. She could not speak or walk and was home with her father and nurse when the fire spread, trapping her inside her room."

"She can't even say anything," sister Rath Tep said. "How would we know? She must've suffered so much."

There were gut-wrenching cries from her family as they walked through the burned remains of their apartment, and the bed where Sareth was found was left scorched.

"She's like a daughter to me, because I've been watching her since I was young until now, and I'm not there when she needed me the most," Tep said.

"The pain she must've felt," brother Richard Sareth said. "And the thought that she was all alone in this situation."

The 19-year-old woman was killed in the devastating fire Tuesday inside the family's North Park apartment while she was home with her father and nurse. The flames somehow sparked in the front living room before quickly spreading.

"I said, 'Please! I want inside to see my daughter. Please, let me in! Let me in!'" mother Samoeun Vuth said. "They said, 'No!'"

The family said her father was able to get to her but needed help taking out her trachea tube. That's when he tried to get the nurse's help, who family members said was in another room before running out to safety.

"She was in a moment of panic, which made her leave our sister behind," Richard Sareth said. "Because she wasn't trained well, it cost the life of someone we loved."

The family is raising funds for her pending funeral through a GoFundMe page.

The nurse works for Aveanna Healthcare.

In a statement, the company said: "Our hearts and prayers are with the family as they cope with the tragic loss of Sallina. Our understanding is that the nurse who was on the scene made multiple, valiant attempts to save Sallina, but it was not possible to gain access to her due to severe smoke and fire conditions. We are cooperating with the official investigation into the fire and will withhold further comments until that investigation is completed."