Man, mother die as he tries in vain to save her from Queens fire

A Queens man ran into his burning home to save his elderly mother in a fast moving blaze Monday, but neither made it out alive. The two alarm blaze broke out around 6 p.m. in the home on in South Jamaica, police said. A neighbor watched as the 63 year old man escaped the flames, then turned back around when he realized his 86 year old mother was still inside.

“He came out and he started saying, ‘My mother! My mother!” said Juan Carlo Velazquez, 68. “Some guys were holding him but he ran back inside.” As smoke poured out of the house, neither the man nor his mother made it back out. “From the side of the basement it was all fire and smoke and I could hear their alarm going off,” said neighbor Chantal Gbado.

“The firefighters arrived and the fire already spread throughout the whole house.” The mother and son were discovered in a second floor bedroom. Inside the home was medical equipment, indicating the woman was unable to escape the flames herself, FDNY officials said on the scene. “It was overwhelming,” Gbado, 45, said of the blaze.

“They were good people. It’s horrifying.” About 100 firefighters from 25 units worked to knock down the flames, which appeared to have started in the basement, Deputy Chief George Healy said at a news conference at the scene Monday night. The fire marshal will determine the cause of the fire, which was the latest in a rash of fatal fires across the city.

On Wednesday, a 5 year old boy in Wakefield, cops said. His mother and great grandmother were also injured in the fire but survived. The boy’s death came two days after , 7, was killed in a house fire on the corner of Brookside Ave. and Alpine Court in Staten Island. The girl was found in a bedroom of the home and was rushed to Richmond University Medical Center, where she died..