By The newspaper
May 25, 2024, 08:47 AM EDT
Several people, including a mother and baby, were miraculously rescued by firefighters in a residential fire last night in Queens (NYC).
FDNY officials said the fire started shortly after 7 p.m. Friday on the 2nd floor of a four-story apartment building located at 34-09 83rd Street in Jackson Heights, he said. ABCNews.
The fire originated in the kitchen area of an apartment and spread through an open door leading to the public hallway. When first responders began searching the building, they found several people trying to escape the flames.
One of the tenants was found on the fire escape, while a woman and a baby were located on the roof of the building. The firefighters managed to rescue them all alive. Their names were not revealed.
They were treated by paramedics and only three civilians suffered minor injuries. It is unclear if these are the same three people pulled out by first responders. No firefighters were injured and the fire was brought under control shortly after 10 p.m.
FDNY Deputy Chief Joseph Jardin said an electric bicycle or scooter with a lithium-ion battery was discovered near the kitchen, but it is unclear if that is what sparked the fire, the cause of which remains under investigation.
The use of electric bicycles has become more common in NYC as a personal and work means to deliver food and other products. But they have generated a serious problem: the lithium-ion batteries found inside caused hundreds of fires and at least 18 deaths in 2023, many of them Hispanic. There are an estimated 60,000 delivery workers in New York, most of them immigrants.
In another miraculous relief, last week a man who was supposedly suffering a seizure fell onto the rails of the New York Subway in the Bronx while a train was approaching and what could have been a great tragedy was miraculously averted by police officers who rushed to rescue him. .