A Queens man who managed to flag down an ambulance only to die of stab wounds at a Brooklyn hospital was just weeks away from becoming a dad, his pregnant wife told the Daily News.
Paramedics rushed 30-year-old Charles Iroh to Brookdale University Hospital after the Rockaway resident flagged their ambulance down near Stanley and Louisiana Aves. in Canarsie around 1:20 a.m. July 20, cops said.
Iroh clung to life in critical condition just long enough to reach the East Flatbush medical center, where he bled out before revealing how he sustained the fatal stab wounds to his chest and back, said police.
Iroh’s wife is currently in the third trimester of her pregnancy with the couple’s daughter, a child whom the victim named but will never meet, she said.
“His daughter’s never gonna experience her dad. She’s never gonna hear his voice again. She’s not gonna feel this touch again,” Iroh’s wife, who asked that her name be withheld, told The News. “She felt it only in a womb.
Employed as a community director at a Brooklyn school, Iroh enjoyed playing basketball video games and watching YouTube clips of America’s Got Talent, his wife said.
But nothing excited the Queens man more than the prospect of becoming a dad, according to his wife, who said her late husband came to every doctors appointment and was working hard to renovate their apartment in preparation for his daughter’s birth.
“He just wanted to be a father,” said Iroh’s wife. “He just wanted to be a family man. Truthfully, he didn’t have a specific thing in life to do. He just wanted to be a family man.”
Even the shoes on Iroh’s feet the night he died expressed his joy at becoming a dad, his wife said.
“On his Crocs that he had on that night, they said, ‘#1 Dad.’ Everything was about his daughter,” said Iroh’s wife.
The last Iroh spoke to his wife, he was at their Queens home Saturday night preparing for a party somewhere in Brooklyn. When he didn’t come home that night, she figured he was sleeping off some cocktails at a friend’s house. It wasn’t until Monday that she became worried and filed a missing person’s report.
When officers met Iroh’s wife at her home, she provided them a picture that police linked to the slain Queens man, who was without an ID and had been labeled a John Doe at the hospital.
He was officially identified when investigators returned to Iroh’s wife with a picture of his body.
“It’s so hard to look at a picture of someone who can’t even open their eyes anymore,” Iroh’s wife said.
The widow said that her late husband had no connection to the area of Canarsie where he flagged down the ambulance and can’t imagine why anyone would attack him.
“[That area] has no significance,” the widow said. “He probably was just driving by and had to stop or something, because he has no ties in those communities.”
“He’s like a teddy bear. He had no hurt in his heart,” said his wife. “He doesn’t even get mad, really. So it’s like, who would have done this and why would you guys do it and take advantage of him?”
