Brooklyn man rushed to hospital after early morning house fire
NEW YORK - Firefighters made an incredible rescue at a three alarm fire at a home in Brooklyn Wednesday morning.
The homeowner was pulled out of the basement and is in critical condition.
Neighbors tell CBS2's Lisa Rozner he had been hoarding items for years, and they had tried to help him.
Video taken just after 4 a.m. shows the inferno raging from 739 East 9th Street in Midwood.
The FDNY released images showing how the second floor collapsed into the first floor.
Gil Torres lives next door.
"He was screaming 'Mom, mom,'" Torres said. "And I went out in the back with a fire extinguisher and I saw the flames coming out the back window. So I sprayed two fire extinguisher in the back window but that wasn't enough."
The FDNY says a captain found the 67-year-old homeowner 15 feet inside the door of the basement, unconscious and entangled in a chair.
"We were encountered with heavy clutter conditions throughout the building," FDNY Deputy Chief Division 15 Joe Duggan said. "We had a collapse of the second floor into the first floor, very briefly pinning two of our members. They were quickly removed."
The fire chief says heavy clutter throughout the home made it difficult to get under control.
"We think the fire was burning for some time before we were notified of it," Duggan said.
The cause is under investigation, but neighbors say the man was living without heat and running water. They believe he may have been using a space heater that accidentally caught fire.
Images of what the house looked like prior to the fire show it filled with items visible through the front window.
"Stacks of papers, cans, whatever he could find out on the street, just... and its just terrible," said neighbor Kimberlee Torres. "Very harmless. Even if you walk by and say hello, he'll say hello, just like any other citizen. But you could tell there was a lot going on, that he needed help."
Neighbors say the victim's mother died in 2014. and after that the situation started to get out of control.
Irene Torres believes the city conducted a wellness check last week. She says neighbors have tried to help.
"It's like a path to walk through the house. Otherwise, everything's, like, up this high," Irene Torres said. "They've tried to take everything out. He's thrown people out of the house."
"My mother would feed him dinner and stuff," said neighbor Tim Seidelbach. "I guess nobody could do anything. Maybe they should do a wellness check on all houses and once a year give a look in everybody's front door, save a life."
"Everybody said 'one day this place is going to burn down' and unfortunately it did," Seidelbach added.
Two of the firefighters fell through the floor while fighting the fire. A total of five firefighters were taken to the hospital. We're told all have minor injuries.
