Firefighters rescued a retired man from his burning house yesterday afternoon in San Jose.
Captain Robert Piper of the San Jose fire department reported that the victim Robert Kent, around his 50’s, was found on the kitchen floor surrounded by flames. The firefighters immediately pulled him out of the Kitchen into safety.
The fire happened around 3 p.m. in a single-story home on Annapolis Way. The house did not have a smoke detector, so by the time firefighters arrived at the scene the house was engulfed in smoke. The fire started in the kitchen and spread to the attic, according to Piper.
Kent suffered from second and third-degree burns on 50 percent of his body. According to a nursing supervisor at Valley Medical center in San Jose said Kent is listed in “ grave conditions.” The cause of the fire is unknown.
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Good decision to make this a delayed identification lead. You're heading in the right direction here, but you need to play up the drama of this story. (If you've got it, flaunt it!)
ReplyDeleteSo in your lead, instead of describing Kent as a retired man (not very exciting), how about calling him an "unconscious man"? That would get my attention. Then, instead of starting P2 with a long dull attribution, write: Firemen found Robert Kent, a retiree in his 50s, on the kitchen floor surrounded by flames, according to Captain Robert Piper of the San Jose fire department. That's much more dramatic (and interesting), right?
Alternatively, you could include the part about the man being found unconscious and surrounded by flames in your lead.
Why is kitchen capitalized? It's "grave condition" not conditions.
Make your last sentence a new paragraph. It's a change of topic from Kent's condition.
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