By Zach Patberg
Citywide Tour Command Chief Howard Hill identified the victim as Dr. John Fotiades, 39, who leaped from a rear window of the house at 87-08 Parsons Blvd. He was found lying in the backyard and pronounced dead from severe head injuries, police said.Dozens of firefighters responded to the two-alarm fire around 11:30 a.m. and had it under control by 12:07 p.m., with the residents on the lower floors, including an 8-year-old boy, suffering only minor injuries related to smoke inhalation, according to Hill.”We found heavy fire on the second floor and heavy smoke throughout the house,” the chief said.The doctor and the injured belonged to three families living in the house, Hill said.As his 78-year-old wife was taken with the others in ambulances to Queens General Hospital, the dead man's father, who said his name was Arthur Fotiades, stood in his socks looking up at the charred house waiting to hear of his son's condition.”Nobody is telling me if my son is alive or dead,” he said. Then, tugging on the sleeve of a nearby fire official he asked, “Are you going to find out if he's dead or alive?”After fire marshals told him that his son had died, the elderly man slumped into a chair.Hill said seven firefighters were also treated at area hospitals for minor burns and smoke inhalation and then released.At least one of two dogs that Arthur Fotiades said belonged to his son was reported to have died in the blaze as well.No charges have been filed and the investigation was ongoing, officials said.John Fotiades, a physician and researcher at the Bronx VA Medical Center and assistant professor of general medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, lived alone with two dogs in the top apartment of the house, while his parents rented the apartment below.Jim Connell, a spokesman at the Bronx center, said Fotiades, who had worked at the hospital since 1998, was a “highly valued member of our treatment team whose talent was only surpassed by his compassion.”Connell, who had been friends with Fotiades for the last four years, said the doctor's day-to-day openness and enthusiasm would be “missed by patients and colleagues alike.”The fire was the first of five that have erupted in Queens since the start of the new year, resulting in three fatalities.Reach reporter Zach Patberg by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 155.
