A Brooklyn mad died after trying to retrieve his pet dogs from his basement on Thursday during a flash flood that inundated parts of Brooklyn, according to the New York Daily News.
First responders found the man unconscious and unresponsive in a flooded basement near Kingston Ave. and Rutland Road in Wingate around 5:00pm, according to police. He was rushed to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead, the Daily News reported.
The man’s identity was not immediately released, but a police source and several friends at the scene identified him as Aaron Akaberi, the paper said.
Akaberi lived in the basement apartment. “He was staying there with a few guys when the basement flooded. He went back in to save his dogs,” said Aymen Kadri, 35. “He got one out and went back to rescue the other. He was electrocuted, and then he drowned,” Kadri said. “I just came from the hospital.”
“They had to get a whole diving team to get him out,” said Akaberi’s roommate Akiva Schulman, 25. “He looked like what you see in a movie. He looked like a dead body that had been fished out of the river. His body was covered in leaves. The whole basement was flooded right up to the first floor, and then 3 more feet,” Schulman said.
Overall, Brooklyn saw about 2 inches of rain on Thursday, but Sheepshead Bay recorded the most rainfall with 2.79 inches, according to the National Weather Service.
Cars parked in parts of Bedford-Stuyvesant saw water come up to the top of their tires, while an occupant of a car near Smith and 9th Streets in Gowanus was rescued by the FDNY, according to the local storm report from the National Weather Service.
