Sharon Hinds, a home health attendant, was walking home from a party along a street in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn early on Saturday when she heard screams and smelled smoke coming from a two-story house.
An older woman in an upper window of the house was leaning out to a porch roof, Hinds said, trying to pull herself out of the burning building.
Suddenly, smoke engulfed the woman, who fell back inside, Hinds said. Only her hands, clutching the windowsill from inside before she lost her grip and fire flared through the window, were visible.
“I watched her die,” a visibly shaken Hinds said as she recounted the scene.
The early-morning fire tore quickly through the home, giving residents little chance to escape, even as neighbors and passersby tried to rescue them.
Lord Kinard, 76, and Octavia Kinard, 71, were killed, a spokeswoman for the New York Police Department said. Their ages were originally given as 86 and 81.
More than 100 firefighters responded to the blaze, which started at about 5:30am at 404 E 49th St and was extinguished about an hour later.
A faulty power strip in the dining room on the home’s first floor caused the fire, New York Fire Department officials said.
There were no working smoke detectors in the house, officials added.
As the flames grew, neighbors and then firefighters raced to save those trapped inside.
One man climbed a tree trying to reach several people on the second floor, but he fell and broke his leg, police officials said.
Plumber Freddy Semple, 34, said he was asleep in his room in the back of the house next door when his neighbors’ screams woke him.
He ran outside barefoot, he said, and found a woman on the roof of the house.
He said he found a ladder, carried it to the burning building and used it to climb toward the roof and pleaded with the woman to come down.
She refused, he said, but then a passerby climbed up the ladder and convinced her to climb down.
Keisha James, who lives across the street, said that after rescue workers arrived, she watched firefighters carry a man into the middle of the street and try to resuscitate him.
Eventually, they appeared to give up, she added.
At the same time, James said, a boy who appeared to be a teenager jumped from the second floor.
She said she ran across the street to open a gate in front of the house for the boy, whose hands were badly burned.
The police said the 19-year-old was hospitalized with burns and was expected to survive. Two firefighters were also taken to the hospital with minor injuries.
On Saturday morning, the home, across the street from a beauty parlor and a party supply store, was charred and gutted.
Semple sat on the steps of his house drinking a beer to try to calm his nerves. A group of people called out to him, calling him a hero, but he yelled back: “No.”
He said his lungs hurt from the smoke he had inhaled and he was grieving over the two neighbors who died.
“I feel like I was the one who was supposed to save their life,” he said.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
RSS