Bronx woman who lost legs to diabetes killed by fire in NYCHA apartment

A church-going Bronx woman who lost both her legs to diabetes was killed by a fire in her 13th-floor NYCHA apartment early Sunday, police and neighbors said.

Edith Browne was on a waiting list to transfer to an apartment on a lower floor in the Butler Houses to make getting around easier, friends said. She relied on prosthetic legs and a rolling walker because her electric wheelchair didn’t work and her insurance company denied her a new one, the friends said.

That left Browne, 59, with little chance of escaping when a blaze broke out inside her home about 12:50 a.m. Medics rushed Browne to BronxCare Health System, where she died.

“I was trying to fight for her to get a wheelchair, an operative wheelchair. Insurance plans, from what I know, didn’t approve it,” said a close friend who gave his name only as Aaron, 55. “She should have had it from the time she has her legs amputated from diabetes … It could have contributed to her not being able to get out fast enough.”

Despite her hardships, Browne remained active and was a beloved neighborhood fixture even after her legs were amputated below the knees because of diabetes.

She played card games in the courtyard of her building on on Webster Ave. at E. 170th St. in Claremont Village, reminisced about her time playing basketball before getting sick and went to church every Sunday.

“She was a very good friend,” Aaron said. “She was at was my barbecue two weeks ago. We [were] always joyful.”

They were planning to soon gather friends to play her favorite card game, spades.

“We always have jokes amongst ourselves with other friends who play cards,” Aaron said.

A neighbor who gave his name as Tony, 58, had just seen the victim before the blaze broke out.

“I had goosebumps when I heard it — I just left her not too long ago, “ said Tony, who has known Browne for 30 years. “She didn’t have nobody helping her. I don’t know why. Nobody was helping her.”

Browne had no children but had a soft spot for kids.

“She loved my daughter very much,” Aaron said, breaking down in tears. “That was her baby. She wanted to become her godmother.”

Browne became sick about six years ago and eventually needed her legs amputated.

Browne had put in a request with NYCHA to be transferred to a lower floor and was placed on a waiting list, according to neighbors.

Michael Horgan, a spokesman for NYCHA, declined to comment on that request, adding that the fire was under investigation by the FDNY.

“She shouldn’t have been on a high floor,” said neighbor Sylvia, 61. “They should ASAP that right away!”

It took firefighters about an hour to extinguish the flames, an FDNY spokesman said. The fire’s cause remains under investigation.

Miguel Rodriguez, 59, who was visiting a friend on the 11th floor of a neighboring Butler Houses tower, said he heard windows popping and breaking.

“I heard the window blow out, psshht!” he recounted. “It was a lot a lot of smoke, like white turning black, white like a cloud. You couldn’t see nothing.”

Neighbors recounted multiple past fires in Browne’s 20-story building dating back almost a decade.

“That building is, like, cursed,” Rodriguez said. “There have been many fires here…. Wherever there’s plywood, there was a fire.”

Firefighters have responded to reported blazes at the building at least five times since 2020, including most recently a Nov. 28 fire where 12 people suffered injuries, ABC 7 reported.

In July 2017, firefighters rescued a husband, wife and 10-year-old child after thick smoke from a fire next door forced them to seek shelter in their 10th-floor bathroom.

A fire sparked by burning incense in a neighboring Butler Houses building killed two baby sisters in 2016.