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by LUIS PEREZ AND ROCCO PARASCANDOLA
A house fire claimed the life of a 63-year-old Queens woman when she was overcome by smoke while seeking refuge in her bathroom, authorities said yesterday.
It appears the victim, Joyce Marasco, would have had to dash through her burning kitchen, where the fire started late Friday night, to escape her Woodhaven home, fire officials said. Instead, according to a firefighter at the scene, she hurried into the nearby bathroom and closed the door.
"She thought she could find some sanctuary in the bathroom, I guess," said her brother-in-law, Bob Carty, who went to the house yesterday to retrieve Marasco's personal effects. "She was a big woman. She wasn't very agile."
When firefighters arrived, Marasco was unconscious. She was rushed to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, but died there just past midnight. An exact cause of death won't be determined until next week, the medical examiner said. The cause of the fire, not believed to be suspicious, is under investigation.
Marasco's upstairs neighbor, Anastasia Alean, who is pregnant, escaped unharmed, and two firefighters came away with just minor injuries, even though one of them was forced to jump off the roof of the two-story home.
Other firefighters, meanwhile, were able to resuscitate Panchita, the Alean family's 15-year-old cat.
"It was nice that the cat lived," said fire Lt. Eddie Mullen, who slipped his oxygen mask over Panchita's face. "But it would have been better if the lady lived, too."
Marasco, who commuted by car pool three days a week to her job on Long Island as an assistant bookkeeper at Rubie's Costume Company Inc., lived alone and kept mostly to herself, often sitting on her stoop and waving to passing neighbors.
The fire started at 11:30 p.m. Friday, fire officials said. The heaviest damage was to the kitchen, though the upstairs apartment suffered enough smoke and water damage to force the Aleans to find temporary housing.
Christopher Atiencia, 21, an electrical technician with the U.S. Navy, was getting into his van, parked in front of Marasco's 98th Street home, when he saw flames inside the house.
He and another friend, Shpend Kelmen, ran to the house and touched the window. It was already extremely hot, Atiencia said, so he kicked in the front door.
By then, Alean, seven months pregnant with a boy, was coming down the stairs. The two friends escorted her out.
"We started yelling 'Fire,'" Atiencia said. "That's when the whole neighborhood heard us."
Several minutes later, neighbors were saddened to see Marasco, dressed in a nightgown, being carried out on a stretcher.
"We saw the woman," Atiencia said. "We prayed."
Yesterday, with Marasco's couch, rocking chair and an artificial Christmas tree in front of the house — removed by firefighters as they battled the blaze — her son Michael, 41, a construction worker, joined Carty and Marasco's brother and sister at the scene.
"She gave every part of herself," her son said.
Carty said Marasco, in his mind, will be forever tied to her home, where she lived for 57 of her 63 years and spent most of her time.
"She used to sit on the stoop and cats used to come by, dogs used to come by," he said. "She'd feed them."
Alean was treated at Jamaica and released, her unborn child apparently unharmed, according to her brother-in-law Oscar Alean, who lives in the house with his wife, Carmen, and Anastasia Alean and her husband.
Two firefighters were also treated at Jamaica. One of them, fire officials at the scene said, was forced to jump off the roof but landed on grass and was not badly hurt.
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