Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf is a New York Plaintiff's personal injury law firm specializing in automobile accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, products liability, police misconduct and all types of New York personal injury litigation.

Articles Tagged with Fire Accident NYC

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FDNY fighting NYC home fireA couple died and their 17 year old daughter was injured in a home fire in Brooklyn, NYC. 61 year old Howard Gluck and 59 year old Evelyn Gluck as well as their 17 year old daughter were sleeping in their two-story home located on 44th Street between Fort Hamilton Parkway and 12th Avenue  in Borough Park, when a fire broke out on the first floor and spread to the second floor around 3:45 am yesterday morning. The FDNY told the media that the fire had probably been going for a while until someone noticed it and called 911. By the time the firefighters arrived, the fire had already engulfed the stairwells.  The couple was found unconscious in a back bedroom on the second floor of the house. They were rushed to the hospital but it was too late and they both passed away. Their daughter was found on the roof of the porch and rescued by the firefighters. She suffered injury and was also transported to the hospital to be treated. She is now in stable condition. The daughter survived because she was able to climb out to a first floor landing before being rescued by the firefighters.

The Glucks had been living in their house for nearly 40 years. They were the first Jewish family to move into the neighborhood and beloved members of a tight knit community. Everybody was in shock yesterday in the neighborhood. Maureen Weiner, who had been living in the house next to them for almost 40 years as well was devastated by the news. She said they were the nicest people.

138 firefighters were called to the rescue to keep the blaze under control and make sure it didn’t spread to neighboring houses. 3 firefighters also suffered minor injury in the exercise of their duty. According to the fire marshals the fire was accidental and caused by “careless cooking/grill”.  There were no smoke detectors installed in the house.

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9 people were injured, 2 houses destroyed and 4 damaged in the massive fire that erupted in the Bronx, NYC, last Thursday. FDNY investigators suspect that 3 men using illegal fireworks sparked the fire. The 3 young men told the police they bought the fireworks in Westchester. Sale and use of fireworks is illegal in the city. The 3 men who are all in their 20ies are facing charges for reckless endangerment of Bronx residents and 200 firefighters, fourth-degree arson criminal mischief and illegal possession of fireworks. The mother of one of the men denied that her son was responsible for the fire. She said her son had been playing with fireworks in the street before the fire but he had gone to work when the blaze erupted. She doesn’t believe the fireworks are at the origin of the blaze. (Read more in the NY Daily News)

Another fire erupted last night at the Glendale farmers market in Queens. 200 firefighters were called in to battle the blaze that engulfed 3 stores and two apartments. 11 firefighters were injured in the NYC blaze as well as one civilian. A lot of smoke came out of the fire and lingered in the street. The smoke was so thick that it was impossible to see across the street. People with asthma and other respiratory weaknesses started to panic. The buildings belonged to a mosque next door. The owners were inside celebrating the last night of Ramadan. They stopped the celebration and instead offered shelter in the mosque to those in need. See video below

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Tweet from the FDNY reporting the NYC fire accident5 young people died in a house fire in New York City Sunday afternoon.  2 year old Chayce Lipford, 10 year old Rashawn Matthews, 16 year old Jada Foxworth, 17 year old Melody Edwards and 20 year old Destiny Dones  all died in a fire that broke out in a house located on 208th Street in Queens village, Sunday afternoon around 2:30 pm.  911 received a call at 2:36 from someone who was driving in front of the house and saw flames coming out of the 1st floor window. The firefighters only took 4 minutes  to arrive but by that time the house was already completely consumed by fire. The only survivor is 46 year old Maurice Matthews, father of Rashawn Matthews. He jumped from a second floor window.  According to CBS New York, the victims may have been trapped in the attic of the house. The house had no working smoke detectors.  The investigation about the exact cause of the accident is still ongoing.

fdny education teamFollowing the tragic accident, the FDNY fire Safety Education Unit  founded by the FDNY Foundation and the New York Red cross set up a stand in Queens Village to teach community residents about the importance of having smoke detectors in their house. They also installed smoke detectors in houses that didn’t have any.

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firefighter who diedA FDNY firefighter fell to his death Thursday afternoon as he was fighting a fire in a NYC apartment. 42 year old, William Tolley was responding to a two-alarm apartment fire on the third floor of  a building located on Putnam Ave in Ridgewood, Queens.  The fatal accident happened when the fire was almost extinguished. Tolley had just finished executing a routine operation on the rooftop. He was about to get in the bucket at the end of a five story ladder when something went wrong and he fell to his death.

It is not clear so far if Tolley took a misstep or if  a mechanical issue with the ladder or the bucket caused the accident. The truck was kept on the street with the ladder extended for investigation purposes.

The FDNY said the fire was a minor blaze with very limited risk of injury or death and the accident was “bizarre”.

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A one year old boy died and six people were injured including two severely in a NYC fire accident yesterday morning morning. The fire started in a three bedroom apartment located on the 13th floor of a building located on Mother Gaston Blvd in Brooklyn NYC. Seven people were living in the apartment. Firemen rescued the bay boy but he died an hour later at the hospital. two other people are still fighting for their life and 4 others were injured but expected to survive. They were all transported to a nearby hospital. Read more in Brownsville Patch

Another fire broke at a new wing of the NYU Langone Hospital in Midtown Manhattan. Nobody was injured as the building was still under construction. Black smoke and massive flames caused by tar burning erupted from the rooftop. The smoke invaded the entire Kips Bay neighborhood. Read more in the NY Daily News

Yesterday 8 people including two firefighters were injured in a fire that erupted in a Bronx two-story houses (see NY Daily News). As the weather is getting colder in the City the number of residential fires has been increasing these last days.

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NYCHA_Logo_480x480Two toddlers died in a fire last April in a Bronx apartment belonging to the New York City Housing Authority. The investigation found that the apartment was visited four hours earlier by Rene Rivera, a former NYCHA maintenance employee. When a NYCHA worker visits an apartment they have to execute several safety checks that include smoke detectors check. The employee signed on his report that the smoke detectors were working in the apartment he just visited. He later confessed to investigators that he actually never looked at them. The employee’s failure to check the smoke detectors resulted in the death of two toddlers in a fire a few hours after his visit.

In an article Today in the NY Daily News, Rivera complains that the work overload at the Butler Houses was such that he didn’t have much time for safety checks.  Rivera blames the faulty error on an understaffed crew and unrelenting pressure to keep things moving. The 27-year NYCHA veteran worker explained that he was overwhelmed by the 25 to 30 appointments he had to respond to every day.

Read more in the NY Daily News

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lit cigaretteTwo people died and one person  was injured in two separate fire accidents in New York City yesterday. Both of them were sparked by lit cigarettes, officials said today. A first fire started Monday morning around 9:00 am in Queens. Andre Reid, a 69 year old retired firefighter died in the blaze. The man had first helped his wife getting out of the house and then he decided to go back in the house to retrieve something. Firefighters found him unconscious in his bedroom. He was transported to the hospital where he died from smoke inhalation. Later on during the day another fire was sparked by a lit cigarette in Brooklyn. The fire started in the bathroom of an apartment in Propsect Lefferts Gardens. There weren’t any smoke detectors in the apartment and the fire quickly spread to the rest of the apartment. A 65 year old woman died and another resident was injured.

Read more in the NY Daily News

Picture: courtesy of Wikipedia

 

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NYCHA Buildings2 baby girls died in an apartment fire in the Bronx, NYC yesterday. According to the NY Daily News, a pregnant mother left her two year old daughter and her 18 month old sister alone in her apartment while she was going to do the laundry at a nearby laundromat. She also left some incense burning in the house and may have disabled the smoke alarms. According to the New York Housing Authority who owns the building where the fire happened, the alarms were functioning five hours before the blaze.

A neighbor also told the Newspaper that the mother,  26 year old Haya Conce, was always burning incense by the window and she often left the kids alone in the apartment. She was warned that it was dangerous but she ignored the warnings. When the firefighters carried the dead bodies of her babies out of the building shes collapsed on the sidewalk. Firefighters said the dramatic accident may have been prevented if the fire alarms hadn’t been disabled.

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NYC fire12 people were injured in a fire in New York City Tuesday night. 4 of the victims were transported to the hospital. One of them suffered serious injuries. The other victims were treated on location for smoke inhalation and other minor injuries.

According to the NY Daily News, the fire started on a building rooftop around 10:00 pm on Dekalb Ave between Knickerbocker Ave and Wilson Ave and spread to four other rooftops. Families who lived in the building were able to escape the building  with the help of two early responding police officers. The firefighters who arrived shortly after searched every floor for potential victims.  A resident told the NY Daily News that his smoke alarm never went off and that the screams from other building residents alerted him to get out.

According to the FDNY commissioner, Daniel Nigro, an extension built behind one of the buildings partially collapsed and triggered the fire to quickly spread to the other buildings. By midnight one of the building’s front facades had collapsed. Several apartments were damaged during the fire leaving 90 people homeless.

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Hoverboard fireAnother defective hoverboard burst into flames creating a fire in a New York City home last week. According to the FDNY this is the third recent case of  a hoverboard fire in the city. Lorraine White from Staten Island paid more than $400 for a Swagway hoverboard for her son last Christmas. She knew about the risk of fire. Therefore she avoided buying a cheap knockoff and paid over $400 for a popular “Swagway” model thinking that it would be safer. It wasn’t the case.  One evening, the hoverboard started to smoke in her son’s room and then burst into flames destroying part of the bedroom. Thankfully nobody was injured. (read more in the silive)

Another boy from Staten Island suffered personal injury after he tried to clean his hoverboard during a vacation in the Poconos. 11 year old Brandon Miller was hospitalized after the middle finger of his left hand became stuck between the wheel and the base. According to the mother the device started rotating unexpectedly and sucked the boy’s finger in. The boy may risk loosing his finger due to infection and may have permanent burn scares.

Previoulsy the FDNY was also called to stop a fire caused by a defective product in Brooklyn.  (see NY Daily News)

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