Man suffers third-degree burns in apartment fire

Aug. 16--LIBERTY -- A Liberty man suffered third-degree burns when his kitchen erupted in flames as he was cooking dinner Monday evening.

John Velazquez, 70, a musician known by his stage name, Johnny Vee, was cooking hamburgers and french fries at about 6 p.m. in his Beaumont Estates apartment on Route 52, he said Tuesday morning, as he gathered with neighbors at the fire scene.

"I had the food cooking on the stove and I went to go do something on the computer for two seconds," he said. "When I turned around, the whole thing was on fire."

Velazquez, who's lived with his wife in the apartment for 30 years, suffered blistering burns over a knee and both arms, and was taken to Catskill Regional Medical Center in Harris. He said doctors there wanted to send him to a burn center in Pennsylvania, but he refused and returned to the apartment complex Monday night, where he stayed with neighbor David Fahey.

The Red Cross was at the scene to assist Velazquez and 11 other families who were temporarily displaced because the power in their buildings had to be turned off.

Velazquez didn't want to leave behind his amplifiers and other valuable equipment stored in a shed behind his apartment, fearing it would be stolen. He also said he thought no motel would take in his wife's 10-year-old German short-haired pointer, Brandy, who is a service dog.

His wife, who's had scores of surgeries and uses a wheelchair, stayed with the couple's son and daughter-in-law, also in Liberty. They were scrambling to buy clothes and replace her many medications, which were lost in the fire.

Velazquez's apartment was reduced to rain-soaked rubble, and the smell of the fire lingered everywhere. Even his Chevy truck was burned.

Rick Sauer, Liberty's assistant fire chief, said the fire took about two hours to bring under control and caused major structural damage; an insurance investigator will have to determine whether it's a total loss.

Neighbors Kim DeHaan and her boyfriend, Mario Molina Jr., changed Velazquez's bandages Tuesday inside Fahey's apartment, where the power was out. Several neighbors there described a litany of problems in the Section 8 complex, describing their landlord, Brian O'Neill, as a "slumlord."

O'Neill declined to speak to a reporter Tuesday.

Velazquez said his electric cook-top was cracked, and the building's management had purchased a new one, which Velazquez planned to put in over the next day or two. He often did his own repairs, he said, because maintenance was slow or non-existent at the complex; he also mowed the grass and did other work there to pay down his $750 monthly rent.

"I never took unemployment," Velazquez said. "I always worked. I'm trying not to be angry. I'm just so upset."

He said he wasn't in a lot of pain from the burns.

"What I want is to get well and start playing music again."

Reporter Michael Randall contributed to this story.

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