High level of gas in B’klyn bldg. sends 4 others to hosp
One man died and four people were hospitalized Saturday after high carbon monoxide levels were found in a vacant Brooklyn building, but it wasn’t immediately clear if the gas was responsible for the death, officials said.
Firefighters found high levels of the odorless, colorless gas in the basement and upper floors of the building on Jackson St. near Humboldt St. in East Williamsburg.
A man in his 40s was discovered unconscious in a second floor hallway at about 6:15 a.m. by one of four other people living in the building. He died there and an autopsy was scheduled to determine the cause of death. All are believed to be squatters in the vacant home.
“It’s terrible. I didn’t know they were squatting,” neighbor Neal McCarthy, 49, said about the people who were staying inside the building. He described them as a father, son and his son’s girlfriend, and said another man, who used a cane, also stayed there.
McCarthy said he would pass the Jackson St. home when he walked his dog, and the people there were often outside and quite friendly.
“(The young woman) got a kick out of my dog so I’d always stop and talk to them,” McCarthy said. “I can’t believe this. I didn’t expect this.”
Sources with knowledge of the case said the other four did not show signs of carbon monoxide poisoning, but they were taken to Cornell Medical Center for observation. Police said it was two men and two women.
Investigators believe the high gas levels came from a generator that was running in the basement, officials said.
“I do construction and a generator gives off a lot of carbon monoxide. If you don’t have it ventilated out a window it’s very dangerous,” McCarthy said.
Emergency personnel evacuated a neighboring building as a precaution, but no additional injuries were reported.
Anthony Testaverde, who manages the Jackson St. address, said the squatters had been in the empty home for a year and he was in the process of trying to get them out.
“I went inside six months ago,” said Testaverde, who works for Premium Group Realty. “We were going to secure the building at that point, and we couldn’t because they were here so we had to go through the legal channels to get them removed, and we were still waiting for that to happen.”
Stephanie Morales, 31, who lives across the street said she never noticed anyone in the building. But, she said, people have been sleeping in front of construction sites in the neighborhood, one of which is next to the building where the gas was detected.
“Two buildings had work stop orders so that’s when they were coming around,” Morales said. “They had sleeping bags, they were set up out here. They were very visibly doing drugs and that’s when it became a problem for the block.”
A woman with a walker who identified herself only as Marie said her sister had lived in the building where the man died. “There was no electricity, no water. My sister would come over to take a shower.”
Marie said her sister lived there for two years, paying rent to someone else in the house, then moved in with her about a year ago.
“Thank God I got her out of there,” said Marie. “That’s my little sister.”