“It’s a true life story you would expect in a Hollywood movie,” de Blasio said Friday after meeting with 13-year fire veteran James Lee. “This one’s for the ages.”
De Blasio stopped by the Engine 53/Ladder 43 firehouse one day after the dramatic rescue of 81-year-old Jim Duffy from his fifth-floor apartment on E. 93rd St.
Mayor Bill de Blasio listens to firefighter James Lee as he describes his story.
Lee, 43, of the Bronx, plucked the asthmatic Duffy from his smoke-filled fifth-floor home and rappelled down the building’s facade with a rope wrapped around himself and the senior citizen.
Flames from the raging six-alarm fire burned through the rescue rope just after the two men reached the Upper East Side sidewalk.
A deadly fire breaks out up on the Upper East Side
“I just grabbed him — nothing else would have worked,” Lee told the mayor. “It was a very smooth ride down … He was in pretty good spirits for a guy who was in real peril.”
De Blasio shook hands with many of the 50 firefighters assembled in the house Friday.
“I really want to stress my admiration and appreciation on behalf of eight and a half million New Yorkers,” said the mayor.
“You’ll live your whole life knowing there’s another human being who got to live, whose family got to have him in their life, because of what all of you did.”
Rope used by FDNY members, including James Lee, in the dangerous roof-rope rescue performed on October 27, 2016.
(FDNY)
One resident of the building was not as lucky. The lone fatality of the 3:30 a.m. blaze was identified Friday as Lemmy Thuku, 25, who was found by firefighters on the third floor, authorities said.
Thuku was badly burned and carried no identification, making it difficult for the FDNY to attach a name to the victim.
FDNY firefighters remove the body from the inferno on Thursday morning.
The cause of the fire remained under investigation, although sources indicated an electrical problem could have ignited the flames.
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