By:JOSEPH KELLARD
"I was driving home and saw the commotion," Mrs. Haberman said. "I parked a couple of blocks away and walked down and saw that it was my apartment that was on fire. I was hyperventilating and hysterical crying, and I had to be taken to the hospital."
Her son, Michael Haberman, was downstairs in the apartment when he saw smoke coming from a second-floor bedroom where the fire began, Haberman said. The flames destroyed Mrs. Haberman's apartment and her neighbor's, Murry Sukernek, and the smoke caused damage to two other adjoining units during the afternoon of Monday, June 3.
For almost a year now, Mrs. Haberman has spent most of her time at the home of her friend, Herb Taylor, located just a few blocks from her apartment which she has owned for 6 years. Her son, Michael, a 35-year-old who suffers from autism, basically lives alone in her apartment now, she is always in contact with him, she said.
"I'm my son's guardian and I speak to him every day, and I am there every day, whether neighbors see me or not. He has autism and learning disabilities, but he's high functioning," she said.
"[Carol] is a very good mother who is there for her son whenever he needs her," Taylor said. "She's on the phone with him multiple times every day, and she drops by the house at least once a day. She makes sure he has sufficient money for his needs, and that he is doing well."
Mrs. Haberman said that Michael told her when he discovered the fire he went to Sukernek's apartment to call 911, and while he did re-enter the burning apartment to rescue his dog, contrary to Sukernek's claims in lasts week's Herald, Michael didn't throw any burning materials out the second-floor bedroom window.
"He was taken to [South Nassau Communities Hospital] for smoke inhalation," Mrs. Haberman said. "We were both released within a few hours."
Michael was taken to a hotel in Rockville Centre, where he will lodge until his mother can find a place for him to live.
"It will take many months to fix my townhouse, but I don't think I'm going to move back there," Mrs. Haberman said.
While Joseph Schweitzer, fire investigator for the Nassau County Fire Marshal, ruled out faulty wiring as the cause of the fire, since it began in the middle of the bedroom. He added, the exact cause will not be known until about four feet of debris is removed from the room.
"There was a lot of clothes in that bedroom, and the roof collapsed on it and brought down the attic and everything stored in it."
