A young teenager who survived the Bedford Park fire after which seven people were transported to area hospitals and in which at least two others were also injured on Sept. 28 has recounted the terrifying experience, and how his father allegedly broke down the back windows of his apartment and came to the rescue of the teen and his mom.

 

As reported, the FDNY said they received a call at 5.54 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 28, for a report of residential fire in an occupied multiple dwelling at 15 East 199th Street between Jerome Avenue and the Grand Concourse. They said one patient was treated at the scene, one refused medical attention, and seven were transported to local area hospitals. Their conditions and descriptions were unknown.

 

They said 12 units comprising 60 fire and EMS personnel responded to the blaze, which the FDNY initially said was located on the third floor of the building, but later confirmed was in a second-floor apartment, 1C. “The door to the fire apartment (1C) was left open and smoke spread throughout the building,” an FDNY spokesperson said, adding that the fire was brought under control at 7.26 p.m. The spokesperson added that fire marshals were investigating the cause, and that e-bikes were found at the scene.

 

A 16-year-old teen of another second-floor apartment who goes by the name of George told us how his father came to his and his mom’s rescue. “It’s a normal day, chilling in my room, playing the game,” George said, in part. “There’s always this couple arguing. I’m hearing screaming in the building. I’m not sure from which apartment, but I just hear from the hallway and I’m assuming it’s downstairs.”

 

He continued, “Most of the time, it’s downstairs because there’s like these types of weird people downstairs on the first floor. It got to a point where they start screaming louder and I’m hearing it and I’m thinking somebody just got stabbed or something. Then I hear my fire alarm go off, but I don’t hear the hallway alarm go off.”

George said on opening his door, he was met with a huge cloud of black smoke and closed the door immediately. “In my mind, the adrenaline just kicked in,” he said. “I ran straight to my room. I started screaming for my mother. I told her the building was on fire, that we needed to leave, and then she started screaming. She was in panic. I had to turn off my game because I don’t know what I was thinking. My mind was just going crazy.”

 

George said he grabbed his phone to call a friend he knew he could talk to the fastest as he had just texted him and knew he had just been active on social media. “He picked up and I told him to call the cops, to let the emergency [services] know my building is on fire, to help me, that me and my mom are stuck because of the smoke, can’t leave,” he said.

 

George said he then called his father who was at work and didn’t pick up initially, but then called his son back. George said, “I told him what’s going on and I started screaming to him, ‘Yo! Dad! I love you! My building is on fire! I don’t want to die! Please, come help! Please! The firefighters won’t do what we want. They can’t find us.’”

 

The young teen said his eyes were hot and burning him from the smoke which had now entered his apartment. “The only safest spot was my mom’s room at the end, so I went to my bedroom and there was a window in my bedroom,” he said. “The fire escape was right next to it. I take my hand out the window and start banging on the safeguard railings for the firefighters.”

 George said he saw a firefighter on the fire escape, but the firefighter didn’t notice him and didn’t hear him and continued to climb up to higher floors. “[He] doesn’t even bother to break in my kitchen window to check the second floor,” George said.

 

The 16-year-old said that was when he called his father, saying, “Yo Pops! They can’t find us! We’re stuck! We’re stuck!” George continued, “And I guess he took it into his own hands, and he came up the fire escape, broke my window. He did what he had to do. I thank God for what he did. Five more minutes in that room with me and my mother, especially my mother, by her age, man…”

 

George said his mom had some health problems and he worried about her. “I was risking my own life as well, trying to leave the room in order to get the firefighters’ attention to come help us, but they couldn’t,” he said. “They wouldn’t find us.”

 

He said his father screamed at the firefighters telling them there were people stuck inside George’s second-floor apartment. “That’s when he [father] broke my kitchen window and my bedroom window, himself, with the firefighters’ tools,” George said. “That’s when the firefighters came inside my kitchen, and he [his father] was telling them where we was at since he already knew what my apartment looks like, and he told [the FDNY] where we was at in my mother’s bedroom.”

George said he told the firefighters if it hadn’t been for his father, nobody would have found him and his mom. We asked George if he could not open his own window in the back from the inside to escape. George said, “I didn’t want to risk opening the window or that smoke would have went inside my apartment and it would have affected my mom and me badly.”

 

The teen said his mom was later taken to the hospital. Asked if there were fire drills carried out in the building, George said, “No, it’s only in my school they do that. I kind of had an idea what to do. My father told me to wet a cloth and put it around my face, but I didn’t have enough time because the bathroom was already filled with smoke, the kitchen was already filled with smoke.”

 

He said his room and his mom’s room were the least smoke-filled. “I grabbed a shirt, put it around my face,” he said. “From [inaudible], somebody had taught me how to put on a face mask as a shirt, so I put that on my face.” He said he was dressed in only shorts and socks as those were the only things he could grab in time. “By the time we got outside, I was just barefooted the whole time,” he said.

 

George continued, “My socks were wet. I was stepping on glass, glass falling from the firefighters breaking the other windows from on top of me. I got hurt, both of my feet. I got cut on the bottom, and then glass fell on my hand and cut my hand a little bit.”

Norwood News contacted the FDNY and asked for a comment on George’s recounting of his rescue. An FDNY spokesperson said that due to the door being left open in 1C, smoke had traveled throughout the hallways and stairwells which were “pretty wide open.” He said generally when that happens, people go to the fire escape.

 

He said the fire chief said when the first two fire units of 12 firefighters arrived on scene, they were met with about 15 residents on the front fire escape. “So obviously, we have to send people inside to fight the fire, right?” the spokesperson said. “But we also have firefighters climbing up the fire escapes and assisting people down as they’re on their way up to the floor that’s on fire.”

 

He added, “Generally, we go to the floor that’s on fire first, and we also send people immediately to the floor above, because that’s [those two floors] the greatest danger.” The spokesperson added, “We had no knowledge of anybody using our equipment to break a window. We can’t speak to that. We don’t believe that happened. What is possible is that maybe, before we arrived on scene, something might have happened where someone was assisting in the evacuation.”

 

The spokesperson emphasized that the FDNY’s recommendation is that if there’s a fire escape by a window of an apartment, and residents can’t exit out their front door, to exit from the fire escape. We mentioned George had said he was fearful more smoke would enter through the window if he opened it. The spokesperson said, “Anyway, yeah, our recommendation is always do that.”

He added, “When we’re faced with 15+ people, our firefighters will assist those who are struggling, but they might have to pass up on somebody who seems like they’re okay to climb down themselves in order to reach somebody that’s at a greater risk, you know?”

 

Referencing the tragic Twin Parks fire in Fordham Heights of January 2022, in which 17 people were killed, the spokesperson added, “The biggest safety message we can convey to people is that if there’s a fire in your apartment, you need to close the door. It’s likely that if the occupant of that apartment [IC] had closed the door, we wouldn’t have had 10 injuries.”

 

For our initial story and for more coverage of the fire, visit www.norwoodnews.org.

 

New York City Council voted to pass additional e-bike safety rules to address the dangers of fires caused by lithium-ion batteries in February 2024.

 

New laws have also been introduced at a federal and State level to address fire safety prevention and the hazards of lithium-ion batteries and e-bikes.

 

Click here for details of a prior federal recall of 53,000 scooters due to a fire hazard involving the deaths of two children.

 

Click here to read FDNY’s fire safety tips.