double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs vietnamese seafood double-skinned crabs mud crab exporter double-skinned crabs double-skinned crabs seamorny seamorny seamorny seamorny
US News

Audio captures moment ex-Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh found ‘unresponsive’

By
Joshua Rhett Miller
Published Dec. 1, 2020
Updated Dec. 1, 2020, 2:24 p.m. ET
1 of 5
Tony Hsieh
Tony HsiehFilmMagic
Firefighters responding to the fire where Tony Hsieh became trapped.
Firefighters responding to the fire where Tony Hsieh became trapped.New London Firefighters
Advertisement
Firefighters responding to the fire where Tony Hsieh became trapped.
New London Firefighters
Advertisement

Newly released audio captured the moment firefighters found former Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh “unresponsive” inside his burning Connecticut home.

The recording, obtained Tuesday by the Daily Mail, captures a dispatcher and firefighter as the 46-year-old entrepreneur was pulled out of the New London home on Nov. 18. He was hospitalized following the blaze and died Friday from complications of smoke inhalation.

“One person barricaded inside of a room,” a dispatcher said on tape before providing the Pequot Avenue address of the $1.3 million home where Hsieh and his brother had been staying, according to the report.

The female dispatcher said the blaze was reported in a “shed that is attached to the exterior of the house,” the recording shows.

“The male is barricaded inside and not answering the door,” the dispatcher said. “Everyone else is outside the house. They are trying to get him to open up.”

Some eight and a half minutes into the call, a firefighter said Hsieh had been rescued.

“One victim being pulled from the fire now — unresponsive,” the firefighter told a dispatcher. The blaze was under control just minutes later.

The state’s medical examiner said Monday that his death was ruled an accident.

Exactly why Hsieh was inside the shed at the time is still unclear. The rest of the five-bedroom home was not damaged, according to the report, and the cause of the blaze remains under investigation.

A man who answered the door of the home told the Daily Mail it had “very little damage” from the fire before declining additional questions and referring a reporter to Hsieh’s attorney.

In a statement Monday to the outlet, New London Fire Captain Brian Wright said that people at the scene had told responding firefighters Hsieh was “locked inside a storage area” and the first responders busted inside to pull him out.

A spokesman for a Las Vegas investment firm founded by the retired CEO — who led retail giant Zappos for 20 years before stepping down in August — declined to comment on Hsieh’s personal matters.

“We are not providing any interviews at this time to give those who just lost a friend and family member their very necessary time and privacy to grieve,” Megan Fazio of DTP Companies told the Daily Mail.

“And we are not at liberty to discuss anything further than the statement we provided as the investigation of the fire as it is still ongoing, and it would be speculative to comment on matters under investigation.”