A 95-year-old man died yesterday from injuries caused by a fire that broke out Monday night in his congested apartment in SoHo (NYC), while his 70-year-old son remains seriously injured.
The death was announced yesterday on Twitter by local councilor Erik Bottcher. Rescuers removed the unidentified father and son from an apartment on the 4th floor of a building located on Sullivan St. between Prince and Spring St., an upscale commercial area of Manhattan, around 9 p.m. Monday. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
In addition to fighting smoke and fire, firefighters had to navigate narrow corridors and heavily congested clutter, slowing their efforts to reach victims, according to FDNY Deputy Chief Michael Barvels.
“There was an apartment with very narrow corridors, which were full of clutter that delayed our access to the apartment,” Barvels said Monday.
Both the father and son were treated by paramedics and taken in critical condition to Lenox Health Greenwich Village, where the older victim died yesterday, police confirmed.
Firefighters on the scene compared the conditions inside this apartment to the infamous Collyers Mansion, a Harlem home where twins died among more than 140 tons of junk in 1947, which has become a national reference among first responders to remember. the dangerous conditions generated by hoarding, recalled Daily News.
In a similar case, at the beginning of 2021 Elliot and Jerry Wolfire, a pair of elderly twins, were found “mummified” in their home in Brooklyn (NYC).
Weeks after that case, Evelyn Sakash, Emmy Award-winning scene designer (2004) -the TV Oscar in the US- was found mummified under a pile of garbage at her home in Queens (NYC).