A terrifying apartment fire in Brooklyn injured 8 residents of a high-rise apartment building earlier this month. NYFD was called to the Marlboro Houses complex at 2250 W. 11th Street in Gravesend shortly after 2PM on December 16. A portion of the 16-story apartment building was ablaze and residents were stumbling over each other, rushing to safety.
When the firefighters finally got the blaze under control, they found 8 victims (including three children) suffering from a variety of injuries. Two of the children (a 4-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy) were rushed to Lutheran and Coney Island Hospitals. Two adults listed in critical condition and two children were rushed to Lutheran.
Fire investigators said that the apartment in which the fire started had been equipped with a smoke detector and that the fire was “not suspicious” in nature, though they declined to comment on how it started.
Many times in cases such as this human error is involved. People leave candles unattended, don’t know how to handle small cooking fires before they become infernos, and improperly dispose of smoking materials on a daily basis in New York City. These careless actions (or inactions) can often lead to serious and even deadly apartment fires in New York. However, sometimes the building’s owner (or maintenance team) is to blame. Shoddy wiring, gas leaks, and other hazards often pileup and go unnoticed and un-remedied in apartments in New York as landlords turn blind eyes to danger.
If such is the case in this particular blaze, the injured victims and their family members could seek financial compensation from the at-fault property owners and their management companies.
If you’ve been hurt in an apartment fire in New York, speak with a lawyer today to learn about your rights and obligations. You may only have a limited amount of time to act before witnesses disappear or become unavailable and vital physical evidence gets destroyed.
Contact the experienced New York City apartment fire lawyers at The Law Offices of Nussin S. Fogel today. Call 800-734-9338 or 212-385-1122 for your free consultation.