Worker forced to drop from burning Brooklyn apartment building leaves behind son

Dale West had no way out but down.

The 49-year-old construction worker clung to the windowsill of the burning sixth-floor apartment where he was working Monday until the flames became so intense they singed his fingers.

Just moments before firefighters arrived at the Rockaway Parkway apartment building near Winthrop St. in Brownsville just after 2:07 p.m., West could hold on no longer and plunged to his death, landing on a fence and the hard concrete courtyard below.

Dramatic video shows thick black smoke and blazing flames billowing out of the apartment windows as West’s colleague also clung to the edge of a different window.

Footage shows the man kicking his legs as he hangs, pulling himself up to the window and then being forced to drop from the top floor of the building.

That man, whose identity is still unknown, survived the fall, landing on a patch of grass in front of the building.

West’s distraught mother, Rosemary Townsend, lost another son years ago. She cast around for answers after West’s death.

“Why was he on the sixth floor with no way out?” she said. “That was my only son.”

West was a devote Christian who studied the Bible.

“He loved the lord, he knew the Bible better than I did,” she said. “He was planning on going into ministry.”

And he was generous, Townsend said, describing him as a “giver” who “would give you the heart out of his body.”

West was an all-around handyman who started his own janitorial service called Norville Janitorial.

“He was a hard worker, that’s how he got so many contracts,” according to Townsend.

He did it all, the mom said. “He would buff floors, tear down small structures, lay down carpet,” Townsend said.

West leave a 9-year-old son, Isa, behind.

“He is crying as much as I am,” Townsend said. “He had children later in life. His father did everything for him. If Isa said he wanted something for $1,000, Dale would make that happen.”

The cause of the blaze is still under investigation, but neighbors believe that the apartment tenant, Roy Perez, was getting some help installing an oven.

The building owner, Isaac Hager, told NY1 that he did not know about the upgrade

“The fire marshal told me told me that it was a heavy-duty machinery that exploded in the apartment,” Hager told the news station. “Thirty-seven years in the business, I never saw such a fire in my lifetime. Such a damage in one single apartment.”

Perez, who survived the fire, is currently being treated in Staten Island University Hospital’s burn unit.

Neighbors said that they saw the tenant engulfed in flames trying to escape the burning apartment.

“He was on fire. His hands was on fire,” fourth-floor tenant Anthony Wroten previously told the Daily News.

“He was on his knees. He was smoking, and when he sat up his hands was on fire,” he recalled. “I was so upset I couldn’t help him. That really bothered me all night.”