Ozone Park fire creates heroes

Almost as soon as Ellen Ramkissoon, 42, noticed smoke pouring into her Ozone Park home last Saturday, February 3, she watched the building across the street go up in flames.
“It happened so quickly, in a split second,” she said. “In less than two minutes the whole building was burning.”
According to a FDNY spokesperson, it was just after 1 p.m. when the two-alarm fire broke out at 95-86 101st Street. More than 100 firefighters responded.
Ramkissoon ran outside into the street with her family and the other tenants in her building. There, she said she saw a young woman trying to escape the burning building from the second floor window.
While Ramkissoon and neighbors from the block watched the scene unfold in front of them, Singh Sukhdev, who lives next door to the burning building, stretched out a blanket with five others. The group aligned itself below the woman and tried to convince her to jump to safety.
“I was screaming. I was crying and screaming for her to jump,” said Ramkissoon. “I didn’t want to see her die in front of me.”
Sukhdev said that the blanket slipped from one man’s hands as the woman fell into it. Although she hit her head, “she’s OK,” he said.
Another woman jumped to safety from the back of the building. Both were taken to Jamaica Hospital where they were listed in stable condition, the FDNY said.
In the meantime, firefighters from Ladder 142, led by 10-year FDNY veteran Victor Milukas, worked to save a man trapped on the third floor as flames poured out of the windows. Coincidentally, Milukas grew up on that very same block, said the FDNY spokesperson.
The team eventually rescued 49-year-old Morgan Sookoo from the blaze who, as of Tuesday, February 6, was listed in critical condition at the William Randolph Hearst Burn Center at Weill Cornell Medical College in Manhattan.
Ramkissoon said she opened up her home to residents of the burning building and other neighbors evacuated by the fire department.
“There were countless people in here,” she said, describing her cozy home as being filled to the brim. “Who can sit, who can stand, they were here.”
Sukhdev, who now has two-foot wide holes on his second and third floor ceilings where firefighters broke through to check for spreading fire, said he understood the fire was electrical in nature.
The FDNY is currently investigating the cause, a spokesperson said.