PITTSTON TWP. — A wheelchair-bound man severely burned in a fire at a residence on Suscon Road Tuesday has died.
The Lehigh County Coroner’s Office confirmed Robert Slezak, 52, died at 6:22 p.m. Tuesday at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Cedar Crest.
According to a news release from Lehigh County Coroner Eric D. Minnich, Slezak died from severe burns that covered nearly 90 percent of his body due to a house fire. The manner of death was ruled an accident.
Slezak was initially transported to Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Plains Township and flown to Lehigh Valley Hospital.
Firefighters pulled Slezak through a bedroom window as they battled smoke and flames at the home Tuesday morning.
“Smoke inhalation and he is burned. He does have severe burns on his body,” Pittston Township Deputy Fire Chief Allan Capozucca said at the scene of the extent of the man’s injuries.
Slezak was home alone when the fire broke out around 11:30 a.m at the one story brick house at the intersection of Suscon and Powder Mill roads.
“It doesn’t look suspicious,” Capozucca said, adding a Pennsylvania State Police fire marshal was called to investigate the cause.
Two men attempted to rescue the man, but were turned back by the heat and heavy smoke. “Individuals that were here before the fire department did hear him. They were having communications with him,” Capozucca said.
One of them, Gene Garron, a retired state trooper, said he heard the man yelling, “I’m burning.”
Garron, 84, came upon the fire as he was driving on Suscon Road from his nearby home. Another man was on the scene, too.
“The door was open, but we couldn’t get in,” Garron said.
They found a rake and used it to break a bedroom window in the back of the house and yank free a screen.
“His (wheel)chair was up against the window with the back toward the window and he was sitting there leaning that way, facing in. That’s where he was when I first saw him,” Garron said.
When firefighters arrived,, Garron said he told them to spray the water from the hose through the broken window onto the ceiling so that it would run down onto the man and keep him cool.
Garron said the man was breathing when he was pulled from the house but he appeared to be badly burned.
“Once we got a line in place, I had guys in the front door and they made entry and they got him out the bedroom window,” Capozucca said. “The fire was knocked down pretty easy. It was just, more of a concern was getting him out and getting him transported to the hospital.”
Firefighters and emergency medical service units from surrounding municipalities responded to the alarm.
