Man Dead After Jumping from NYC Sixth Floor Apartment to Escape Fire
Thomas Tracy
New York Daily News
(TNS)
A man who fell from a sixth-floor Brooklyn apartment while escaping a fast-moving fire has died, police said Tuesday.
The 49-year-old victim was one of two men who plunged from the Brownsville building as they scrambled to save themselves from the fire Monday, FDNY sources said.
The victim plunged more than 50 feet moments before firefighters arrived, FDNY officials said.
He was clinging to the windowsill but the flames burned his fingers, building resdient Dy- Sylvia Ponder said.
“He was holding on for dear life and his fingers were charred,” Ponder, 26, said.
Landing on the concrete, the victim suffered a massive head injury, horrified witnesses told the Daily News.
“His face was split open to the bone,” Ponder said. “His nose was pushed inside of his head. His face hit the concrete first.”
The fire ignited in the building on Rockaway Parkway near Winthrop St. about 2 p.m., drawing more than 60 firefighters and paramedics, FDNY Deputy Chief Jim Carney said at the scene Monday.
A second man who plunged from the burning apartment landed on the grass but was knocked unconscious by the fall, witnesses said.
The two men and two others pulled from the building were taken to Brookdale University Hospital, where the victim who landed on the concrete died. His name was not immediately released.
The other victims are all expected to recover.
Construction work was being done on the apartment when an explosion occurred and the fire started, FDNY sources said. The intensity of the blaze has led fire investigators to deem the blaze suspicious.
FDNY Fire Marshals are working trying to determine what sparked the blast.
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