By JOE MOLLICA, REBECCA ROSENBERG and JENNIFER FERMINO
June 16, 2008
Three family members were killed yesterday in a horrific, fast-moving Queens fire that forced some residents to dive out windows and others to flee engulfed in flames, officials and witnesses said.
Heriberto Garcia-Vera, 68, was found dead of smoke inhalation in his family's third-floor apartment at Metropolitan Avenue and 69th Street in Middle Village. His 48-year-old wife, Flor Sandoval, and 20-year-old son, Felipe Garcia, died hours later at Elmhurst Hospital.
Five other building residents were injured in the blaze, two of them critically. Six firefighters suffered minor injuries.
Officials deemed the 7:35 a.m. fire suspicious because it spread quickly and broke out between the second and third floors of the three-story building - not near any electrical outlets, sources said.
The blaze blocked the stairway and spread so fast that three people jumped from second- and third-story windows to escape, witnesses said.
Two other victims ran from the burning building engulfed in flames and screaming for help.
"They walked into my store on fire. Their whole body was on fire. They were screaming, 'Please, help!' " said Mohammed Al-Matari, 45, who operates a deli on the ground floor.
The stunned shopkeeper grabbed several gallons of bottled water from his shelves and doused the burning man and woman.
"I tried to do everything I can, but their whole body was in flames," he said.
"We did the best we could."
In one instance, firefighters tried to rescue a trapped victim from the third floor with a ladder, but he couldn't wait and jumped.
He ended up falling on top of a woman who was hanging out of a second-floor window screaming for help, knocking her to the ground as well.
Garcia-Vera had recently moved into the building with his family so his wife could be closer to her job, deli employees said.
"It was only a week that he was here," said Mike Hameed, 42.
"He was so happy to be here with the deli downstairs and close to his wife's job."
Hameed said Garcia-Vera told him, "My wife was taking three buses to work. That's why we moved here."
A neighbor who would not give his name said a second son had also lived with Garcia-Vera, and suffered burns, but was in stable condition at Elmhurst and expected to survive.
William Salazar, 31, who lives in a second-floor apartment, suffered burns over 40 percent of his body and smoke inhalation, said relatives at the burn unit of New York Hospital.
Investigators are trying to determine if flammable materials Salazar stored in his home for his carpet-cleaning business, or a thunderstorm hours before, were factors in the blaze, sources said.
Salazar's girlfriend, Agnes Bermudez, 48, of upstate Newburgh, also suffered serious burns, including on her face, relatives said.
Additional reporting by Larry Celona and Jamie Schram
