By Joe Anuta
Visiting family members who were staying at a Fresh Meadows home were among 11 people who were taken to the hospital Monday after an early-morning blaze.
The fire broke out at about 1:45 a.m. in the second story kitchen of a two-family home, according to the FDNY, where 10 people were staying.
Four of the people on the top floor of the two-family home suffered life-threatening injuries, according to the Fire Department.
“He was barely breathing,” David Abdurakhmanov, the owner of the house, said of one of the victims.
Abdurakhmanov was standing outside the building he owned later Monday, watching crews clean up debris and begin cleaning the house. He said some of the people were visiting from Florida.
Firefighters pulled several people from the second floor in the early morning, and the blaze was under control by 2:20 a.m., a spokesman from the FDNY said.
Two people who were critically injured were brought to North Shore LIJ-Health System, while another two were taken to New York Hospital Queens, where one of the city’s Bravest was also treated for minor injuries.
The kitchen, where the fire broke out, was located in the center of the second-floor apartment, while the bedrooms were further back in the house and could have hampered escape efforts by those inside, according to the FDNY.
The fire was not considered suspicious, according to the FDNY.
Reach reporter Joe Anuta by e-mail at januta@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4566.
