By Julia Marsh and Beth DeFalco
The New York Post
NEW YORK — A Queens woman who desperately dialed 911 as a fire raged through her family’s two-story home died still clutching the phone early yesterday.
Her 59-year-old cousin, who slept on the first level because of his arthritis, made it out alive and was taken to New York Hospital Queens, where he was treated for minor burns and smoke inhalation and then released.
Firefighters discovered an unconscious Joanne Brown, 63, as they extinguished the flames in her Auburndale home on 189th Street, near 45th Avenue. EMS pronounced her dead at the scene.
The fire began at about 4:40 a.m. and was under control less than an hour later, according to an FDNY spokesperson.
A firefighter said Brown was on the phone with the dispatcher when the line went silent.
“They found her upstairs facedown with the phone by her side,” the firefighter told The Post.
Brown’s cousin John Rebecchi may have tried to put out the blaze. Fire officials said there was a bucket of water nearby.
“The flames, I could hear them cracking, and the screaming of him [John] calling to his cousin to come out . . . He was saying, ‘Joanne! Joanne! Come out here!’ ” said neighbor Sandra Villafane.
Louis Digrugilliers, a friend of Rebecchi’s, said, “Everything is gone. He has nothing.”
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