Queens, Nov 8 (THAINDIAN NEWS) 3 men were killed in a fire in a Queens home’s basement when they could not escape out of the basement, due to illegal construction that had blocked their exit. Another bad news for them was that the firefighters were summoned to help them out but unfortunately they were sent to the wrong address.

“The 911 dispatcher mistakenly sent firefighters to the wrong address”, the FDNY acknowledged. Critical time was lost that could have saved the men’s life, when the fire fighters reached the wrong address. The basement was illegally divided into 4 single rooms to accommodate the Bangladeshi immigrants, who used to stay there.

“I heard a loud bang, and looked out the window and saw flames coming from the basement,” said neighbor Pat Jiminez, 36. “I heard screaming. I saw smoke. . . . It was raging.”

When the fire fighters arrived then the men were charred and burned to death. One person was found just inside the front door. Another dead guy was found in the basement, while a second died in the backyard despite desperate efforts to revive him.

“There was construction that probably blocked” their escape, said FDNY spokesman Jim Long. While the FDNY said that the fire response time of just less than five minutes was “very good,” fire union officials questioned the dispatcher’s mistake of sending the whole unit to the wrong address that cost 3 human lives.

“We’ll never know if we could have saved all three,” said Leroy McGinnan, the firefighters union trustee for Queens. “But we would have had a fighting chance if units were on the scene.” “We have a situation here of human error,” Long said.