A neighbor of three men who died in a fire in Queens last month claims that a dispatching typo delayed the FDNY by 15 minutes and that the department should pay for its mistake, according to The New York Daily News.
Yesterday, Shafin Ahammed filed a notice of claim -- a precursor to a lawsuit -- accusing the department of negligence.
Although the FDNY has acknowledged the dispatching error that occurred on Nov. 7 when firefighters were sent to 62nd Street instead of 65th Street, it says that it took crews under five minutes to reach the correct address.
He said while residents waited for crews to arrive, he was forced to try to save his neighbors. At one point, the 30-year-old says he tried to pull one of the men out of the basement, but was forced back by the heat.
"My hand was burning. It was so hot," he told the newspaper. "I couldn't let the guy die, but within a few seconds the fire burned more. I couldn't go back in."
Ahammed claims he can't return to work at a GNC store because of his injuries and is living at a YMCA in Flushing.
