Heartbreak: Dog Saved from Fire Succumbs to Her Injuries
The neighborhood raised funds to save a dog named Bella, who was rescued from the East Village fire that killed her owner. In the end, valiant efforts to save the pooch weren’t enough.
| 10 Feb 2025 | 03:39
Robert Bartholomey, an Air Force veteran who died in an East Village apartment fire on Feb. 2, holds his beloved dog, Bella, who succumbed to her own injuries five days later. (
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The firefighter in the rear is holding Bella, the Miniature Pinscher that he rescued from the fire that killed her owner on Feb. 2 in an East Village apartment fire. Sadly, Bella herself died five days later. (
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A week after a fire in the East Village that killed a man and his dog, other residents in the six-story building who escaped without injury have not been allowed back into the building as a partial vacate order from the Buildings Department remains in effect. (
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Staffers at the Emergency Veterinary Hospital in Chelsea tried valiantly to save Bella after she suffered carbon monoxide poisoning in the Feb. 2 fire that killed her owner, Robert Bartholomey on Feb. 2. Sadly, despite an outpouring of love in the East Village, Bella died five days later. (
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Despite efforts to save her, Bella, the tragic pooch who was rescued from a fire that killed her owner in an East Village apartment fire, succumbed to her own injuries on Feb. 7.
She passed away five days after the Feb. 2 fire that killed her 75-year-old owner, Robert Bartholomey. The two were well known to shop owners and neighbors around the apartment building at 65 Second Ave. near East 4th Street. First responders who rescued her from the second-floor apartment where the fire erupted handed the Miniature Pinscher to a neighbor, Dean Mann, who rushed her to a veterinary hospital, where Bella battled valiantly for survival. Friends and neighbors and a few anonymous donors rallied around a GoFundMe page that raised over $15,000 for her care. But in the end the smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning she suffered proved to be too much. She passed on Feb. 7.
“It is with a heavy heart that I write this update,” wrote Mann on the GoFundMe page that was started by his sister, Krisi Letendre. “Bella passed away Friday evening [Feb. 7] after her lungs developed an infection and her mobility continued to deteriorate rapidly due to neurological damage caused by the smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning.
“She was on sedatives and painkillers at the time of her passing and passed away peacefully,” Mann wrote. “While this is certainly not the outcome we had all hoped for and supported, it is a grim reality of the circumstances that Bella experienced.”
Mann told Our Town Downtown that he had befriended Bartholomey because both owned Miniature Pinschers. Mann said his own pooch, named Tippy, frequently played with Bella. “They were doppelgängers,” he said. Bella would frequently follow Bartholomey as they made their rounds in the neighborhood. “He was a character,” recalled Mann of his friend. “Everyone knew him, and they definitely knew that dog.”
Many of the elderly residents who lived in the six-story building were brought out on stretchers that day. And when Our Town Downtown went back on Feb. 9 to check, there was a partial vacate order from the Buildings Department posted on the door. The Red Cross had visited after the fire, but it was not known if the organization had found shelter for the now homeless surviving residents.
Bartholomey, who was known as Bobby to most people in the neighborhood, was an Air Force veteran who had served in the Vietnam War, another neighbor had told Our Town Downtown.
On the GoFundMe page Mann wrote, “It was a miracle that Bella survived the fire, as she was in the apartment while the fire burned for more than 30 minutes.”
Mann said that the funds raised from the GoFundMe page would be use to defray the medical expenses at the Emergency Veterinary Hospital in Chelsea and an animal ICU unit on the UES where Bella was transported when it was learned she’d need intensive care. He said the costs “are in excess” of the $15,023 raised by the GoFundMe drive.
“I had visited Bella in the hospital every day this week and though I am terribly saddened at this outcome, I am at peace knowing that she is no longer suffering. Arrangements are being made so that Bella’s remains will be in the resting place of her beloved owner Robert. They will forever remain by each other’s side,” Mann wrote.
“The support from the community, first responders, and the many veterinary medical professionals who treated her gave Bella a fighting chance; however, after almost 5 days of fighting for her life, Friday evening she joined her owner in heaven,” he wrote on the GoFundMe page. “Their legacy in the neighborhood will forever be remembered.”
Another neighborhood resident on the blog EV Grieve noted: Bobby and Bella will be missed. Bella was always such a joyous, capering presence on the block. She was so well behaved, so friendly and utterly devoted to Bobby as was he to her. She was a leaner. I will miss that. They will certainly both be missed. Thank you so much to Dean, his sister and all the helpers. Sending all the love.