Who was Ashiq Hussain? Pakistani Uber driver dies after falling from firefighter's ladder in Brooklyn
The early morning fire broke out in the building housing Hussain's apartment, located above the M9 Deli and Grill in Brooklyn.
Hussain had just returned home from a night shift when he noticed the fire and alerted his two roommates, who were able to get out safely.
Seeing thick smoke filled his top-floor unit, Hussain and another person attempted to climb down a ladder deployed by the FDNY. But, the ladder's upper section buckled and Hussain fell from the top of the ladder to the sidewalk below.
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'He was trying to breathe from the outside because inside there was a lot of smoke,' his cousin, Mazhar Iqbal, told the Daily News, who had spoken with Hussain moments before the fall.
'I told him: 'Be careful, soon the firemen are going to come and you can hang up the phone.' I told him: 'Be careful when you're going out to the ladder,' because he is older and he was overweight.'
Emergency crews quickly rushed to his side, but Hussain succumbed to his injuries. The medical examiner ruled the cause of death as blunt-force trauma. The FDNY has launched an internal investigation and removed the ladder from service.
'They did really wrong. They took the head of the family,' Iqbal told the New York Daily News. 'They ruined the family's life.'
Sadly, after years of hard work, Hussain had finally saved enough to bring his wife and children to the U.S. 'He actually came in recently and told us he was so happy his family was finally coming,' said the owner of M9 Deli, who knew him well. 'He was a very nice, respectful person… It's tragic. Tragic.'
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Hussain had started looking for an apartment that could fit his family when they arrived. Now his family is working to get his body to Pakistan so he can be put to rest there.
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