Tag Archive | "FDNY"

Fire Destroys Fordham Heights Home

Fire gutted a home on East 184th Street in the Fordham Heights section of The Bronx early Monday morning. A video report by SkyFoxHD shows the house in flames before firefighters arrived on the scene.

FDNY officials said the flames broke out at about 6:20 a.m. at 15 E. 184th St. near Walton Avenue. It was brought under control at about 8 a.m., an official tweet by the FDNY reported.

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Man Jumps Into Tiger Den at Bronx Zoo

A man jumped into a tiger den at the Bronx Zoo and then was mauled by a 400-pound tiger, yesterday afternoon in an apparent suicide attempt according to officials, the DNAinfo reports.

Twenty-five year old David Villalobos was riding the zoo’s monorail, and as it passed over the tiger den – he jumped 17 feet and landed on the ground where a 400-pound Siberian tiger mauled him.

Villalobos, who officials said visited the zoo alone, told those who rescued him that he jumped in a suicide attempt.

Villalobos’ right foot and left leg were clawed, and he was bitten on the back, where a fang punctured his lung, sources said. Zoo officials said he also suffered bites on his arms and shoulder. He was taken to Jacobi Medical Center, where he was in critical but stable condition Friday evening, police said.

Bronx Zoo personnel rescued Villalobos by using a fire extinguisher, zoo personnel said in a statement.

The tiger who attacked Villalobos was 11-year-old Bachuta, a 400-pound male  Siberian tiger according to Jim Breheny, the zoo’s director.

In a press conference at the zoo Friday evening, Breheny said the zoo had been prepared to use deadly force to restrain the tiger but did not blame the tiger for his reaction.

 

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Emergency Teams Respond to Suspicious Powder in a Fordham Office

Emergency teams responded to a 911 call regarding suspicious white powder found in an office near Fordham University Tuesday morning.

DNAinfo reported that an FDNY Hazmat team and the NYPD rushed to One Fordham Plaza to investigate the substance, which was discovered under a desk in the fifth floor office. The building was not evacuated and there were no reported injuries.

 

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In Bronx Blaze, Disaster Averted by Seconds

Jacob Sowell, a Pelham Parkway Houses resident, used this safety harness to aid neighbors, who were leaning out of their windows during an apartment fire.

Jacob Sowell, a resident of Pelham Parkway Houses, used this safety harness to aid neighbors, who were leaning out of their windows during an apartment fire. Photo by Sam Fellman.

Jacob Sowell’s nap was rudely interrupted on Monday afternoon by the scene outside his sixth-floor apartment window. He was shocked by what he saw — smoke and a baby dangling out of the window.

“It was almost like a dream – a bad dream,” the 66-year-old Sowell said.

What he saw was Vanessa Scott, 18, holding her 7-month-old cousin, Zaniwah Alexander, out of the window of her fifth-floor apartment that was engulfed in smoke. She was trying to keep the baby from suffocating, she later told the Daily News.

Sowell heard Scott scream, “the fire’s up on me.” Meanwhile, voices from the crowd below cried, “don’t drop the baby!”

From Sowell’s window, he could see that she was loosing her grip.

Just after 2 p.m. at 795 Pelham Parkway North, a fire broke out in a fifth-floor apartment. Ignited in a closet by the front door, the flames soon spread through the crowded apartment, sealing people in a thick curtain of flame and smoke. Tenants raced to the windows for air.

In the apartment directly above, Sowell called 911 and then, with his 20-year-old son Jacob, rushed to the window in his son’s bedroom. Below them, a man and a woman were leaning out the window, gasping for air. “How can I help?” Sowell wondered.

Sowell, a construction worker, seized his safety harness and then broke the bedroom window. He clipped the harness to a pipe nearby and handed the makeshift tether to the man below, who grabbed it and was able to lean farther out.

Within minutes, fire trucks arrived. The firefighters extended a portable ladder and set it against the seven-story building. One climbed up and carried the baby down to safety, then began to evacuate the other people.

The rescue did not come in time for Michel Alexandra to avoid injury. He had been hanging from a rope out of the apartment when the firefighters arrived. Then he lost his grip, falling four stories and striking the building’s awning before hitting the ground. He was evacuated to Jacobi Medical Center, where he is in fair condition, hospital officials said.

Firefighters rescued eight tenants, who were also brought to Jacobi with minor injuries. They have since been released. In addition, three firefighters were treated for minor injuries.

A day later, many residents of Pelham Parkway Houses were still shaken up.

Betty Diaz, 51, whose apartment is on the same floor as the fire, fled the building when she heard the screaming of her neighbors. By the time she snatched Kiuruba, her Yorkshire terrier, and left her apartment, the choking, black smoke filled the hallway.

“I can’t see, I can’t even breathe,” Diaz recalled.

Diaz, who has lived in the building for 36 years, said this was the first fire.

The cause of the fire was children playing with matches, Fire Department officials said.

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