PHOENIX — Sitting in her living room, Eva Bellomo sifted through pictures of her son, Andy Bellomo. She picked one up that showed a sly, closed-lipped smile.
“I think that this is probably indicative of him,” Bellomo said.
She talked about her late 14-year-old son with a fond smile and laughed at stories about his unique personality.
Bellomo said that her son adored his younger sister, had a passion for baseball and a talent for drumming.
“He referred to himself as, ‘The Legend’, his band was ‘Legend By Name’,” Bellomo said.
All of the pictures in front of her hold memories of her son, but there are so many that should have filled her coffee table.
“There are a lot of other things that will never be and to know that it was something preventable is the most heartbreaking part about it,” Bellomo said.
It was Saturday, June 7, 2008, when Bellomo was woken up by an unthinkable call around 4 a.m.
“It’s been a lot of years,” Bellomo said. “But, in some ways, it’s like it was an hour ago.”
A nurse left a message for Bellomo. It said that there was a situation that he needed her to call him back about.
“I got him on the phone and that’s when he told me my son had been in a house fire,” Bellomo said.
Bellomo said that Andy was staying at a friend’s house in North Phoenix. She said that in the early morning hours, fries were left on the stove in cooking oil as the oven was pre-heating.
She said the house did not have a working smoke detector and by the time anyone noticed the fire, the entire kitchen was engulfed.
In 911 calls, callers described flames coming out the front door of the house, 14-year-old Andy was stuck inside.
Archive footage showed the aftermath of the fire with a badly burned home, the windows were broken out and firefighters cleaning up the scene.
Bellomo said Andy suffered second and third-degree burns over 60% of his body, and the CO2 levels in his blood were extremely high.
When firefighters found him in the house, Bellomo said he did not have a pulse or a heartbeat, and had to be resuscitated on scene and again at the hospital.
Andy died the next day at the hospital.
“Those precious minutes that were lost would’ve made all the difference between him getting out and the fact that he never made it out,” Bellomo said.
Bellomo said that now, it’s about Andy’s legacy. She hopes his death can help save someone else’s life.
“I wish that everyone would take that seriously to check their smoke detectors, check the batteries, replace them every 10 years,” Bellomo said.
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