{"id":130645,"date":"2026-02-11T23:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T23:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/130645\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T23:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T23:32:10","slug":"man-who-ran-into-queens-fire-to-save-mom-clings-to-life-after-suffering-horrific-burns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/130645\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who ran into Queens fire to ‘save mom’ clings to life after suffering horrific burns"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 22-year-old survivor of a Queens house fire that killed a woman and her newborn baby<\/a> was fighting for his life Wednesday, with severe burns throughout his body after going back into the inferno to rescue his mother, who had already escaped, his brother said.<\/p>\n

Doctors said Thet Aung Oo suffered burns on 99% of his body, and relatives said his lungs were filled with smoke amid worries that his heart and kidneys might fail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese next four to five days are very critical for him,\u201d said the victim\u2019s brother, Phyo Ko.<\/p>\n

He said doctors told him that his brother may undergo another surgery, and that he is going to need ventilation for a long period of time.<\/p>\n

Oo was critically injured Monday night when a fast-moving fire swept through a subdivided Elmhurst home,<\/a> killing Miguelina Alcantara, 34, and her newborn baby, Emma.<\/p>\n

The intense fire at the home on Dongan Ave. near Broadway spread to a neighboring building and destroyed it.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe scene of a four-alarm fire in Elmhurst, Queens, that gutted two buildings on Dongan Ave. on Feb. 9, 2026. (Kerry Burke \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Ten survivors needed medical treatment, including Oo and three firefighters, who suffered minor injuries<\/a>, officials said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t know the cause, but we believe it started from the basement,\u201d Pho said of the blaze. \u201cThat building is very old, and there have been fire issues, like, three or four times already. We informed the landlord, but they haven\u2019t taken much action. Four months back, there was a small fire incident in the kitchen on our floor, and that was taken care of, no injuries. Nothing to this degree.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said his brother and their parents lived on the first floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents started smelling the smoke, so my mother went out to find out what happened,\u201d Pho said. \u201cOnce she opened the main entrance door, a lot of smoke came into the room. My mother managed to get out of the building, but my brother didn\u2019t know whether she was in the building or not. Confusion happened, and he went back in.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw him outside,\u201d Pho said. \u201cHe was naked, and his body was completely on fire. He started rolling in the snow, ice and then the firefighters carried him to the ambulance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ThetThet Aung Oo (pictured) was badly injured in a fire on Dongan Ave. in Queens on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, in New York City. (GoFundMe)<\/p>\n

Pho said his father suffered a minor injury to his back, and his mother burned her hand when she tried to help her burning son.<\/p>\n

Pho said there were three or four bedrooms in the basement housing people from different families, including the mother and daughter who died.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had casual conversations, but I didn\u2019t know her well,\u201d he said of Alcantara.<\/p>\n

\"ThetThet Aung Oo (pictured) was badly injured in a fire on Dongan Ave. in Queens on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, in New York City. (GoFundMe)<\/p>\n

Pho said his family doesn\u2019t know what to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents are devastated, but I have to stay strong,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m just holding on, staying hopeful. We haven\u2019t let my mother see him because I know she\u2019s going to have a breakdown seeing him in this condition.\u201d<\/p>\n

A GoFundMe page by the fianc\u00e9e of Oo\u2019s boss noted his selfless act, and called him courageous for putting his mother first. Pho said his brother worked in a small jewelry company in Manhattan\u2019s Diamond District.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThey are like family, and they are helping him,\u201d Pho said.<\/p>\n

\"ThetThet Aung Oo (pictured) was badly injured in a fire on Dongan Ave. in Queens on Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, in New York City. (Photo courtesy of Phyo Ko)<\/p>\n

He said Oo and his family were planning to move to Florida to jumpstart a new jewelry store with his boss.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were looking for an apartment there, and then this happened,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 22-year-old survivor of a Queens house fire that killed a woman and her newborn baby was fighting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[262,263,266,85,267,9,24,264,12,63,261,122,124,123,265],"class_list":["post-130645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-city","tag-county","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-county","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-crime","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-sub-county-region"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}