by Tanyanika Samuels
The youngest son of a Brooklyn preacher was seriously injured when a fire ripped through the family's Bedford-Stuyvesant brownstone last night.
Guests at a block party in front of the 444 Hancock St. home said Jeffrey Lassiter, 34, was trapped on the third floor when the fire started about 10 p.m.
His 80-year-old father, the Rev. Wade Lassiter, a longtime neighborhood resident known as "The Preacherman," came rushing out screaming for help, but neighbors were turned back by thick smoke.
"The Preacherman said his son is on the third floor," said neighbor Maxx Evans, 46. "I tried to run back in there, but when I got to the vestibule, it was too hot and the smoke was too much. And I thought to myself, he ain't gonna make it."
A firefighter brought an unconscious Jeffrey Lassiter, one of the minister's four children, out of a third-story window. He was taken to Woodhull Hospital in serious condition.
"We were all just enjoying the block party," said the Lassiters' stunned next-door neighbor, who declined to give her name. "It was ending and people were just beginning to go home. It was just a normal day, a beautiful day."
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