Tenant dies in Downtown apartment fire
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Resident Amanda Belhumeur, right, talks to a police officer Thursday as firefighters respond to a fire on the ninth floor of the Roosevelt Arms building along Penn Avenue, Downtown. An unconscious resident died after being rescued. -
Paramedics perform CPR on a man who was found inside the Roosevelt Arms building on Penn Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh after a fire broke out on the 9th floor of the building on Thursday, -
Firefighters respond to a fire on the ninth floor of the Roosevelt Arms building on Penn Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh. -
Firefighters respond to a fire on the ninth floor of the Roosevelt Arms building on Penn Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh. -
Paramedics take a person who was inside the Roosevelt Arms Building in Downtown Pittsburgh to an ambulance after a fire broke out there on the ninth floor on Thursday. -
Firefighters inside the entrance of the Roosevelt Arms Apartment building on Penn Avenue, Downtown, during fire incident Thursday.
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Neighbors remembered a 73-year-old man who died following a Downtown apartment fire Thursday evening as an eccentric man who loved to cook and enjoyed a good drink.
Firefighters found Richard Snyder lying unconscious on the floor of his ninth-floor apartment in the Roosevelt Arms Apartments near Sixth Street and Penn Avenue, a pot of unattended food smoking on a stove nearby.
Medics began doing chest compressions and took Mr. Snyder to UPMC Mercy, where he was pronounced dead shortly afterward.
"He's a character," fellow tenant April Page said of Mr. Snyder. He often wore Hawaiian shirts and loudly told jokes that were funny in an "old man" way, she and a friend said.
Firefighters said they received a call at 4:21 p.m. for a small fire that began in Mr. Snyder's apartment and sent smoke swirling through parts of the building.
One woman also was taken to a hospital for minor treatment following the fire. Fire Chief Darryl Jones said she was doing well Thursday night.
Tenants crowded on the street corner while they awaited word on their neighbors and watched as city homicide detectives, city director of public safety Michael Huss and Mayor Luke Ravenstahl talked outside the building.
One woman, who declined to give her name, said she has lived on the ninth floor of the 13-story complex for 13 years. She said she heard the alarm sound, stepped into the hallway and saw that Mr. Snyder's apartment was "black, black, black" with smoke.
Residents rushed to exits and down the stairs, some greeting firefighters along the way.
Judy Woods, 37, said she was watching "Criminal Minds" in her apartment when she heard the fire alarm sound and smelled smoke.
"I had a premonition about fires," said Ms. Woods, who was living in the complex three years ago when a man decided to smoke while using oxygen, causing a fire that killed him.
"I'm thinking about moving," she said.
Neighbors credited one another with helping to escort some of their older neighbors to safety. Chief Jones said firefighters maintain a plan for responding to high-rise apartment fires, treating each one as at least a three-alarm fire regardless of its severity.
Parts of the building sustained smoke damage, but most people, aside from some on the ninth floor, were allowed to return to their apartments Thursday night.
Chief Jones said the Red Cross was called in to help people who needed a place to stay.
First Published February 3, 2012 12:00 am
