Off-duty cop rescues 4-year-old boy from blaze
Published: March 29, 2007
An off-duty police officer on his way home from work early this morning rescued a 4-year-old boy from the third floor of a burning house on the 70-block of Windsor Road in Castleton Corners.
“The ladder didn’t reach to the (third floor), so the dad reached down and I grabbed the boy by his leg and handed him to the landlord, who was behind me,” said Vincent DiCrescento, a narcotics cop assigned to Brooklyn South.
The all-hands blaze, which was first reported at 4:54 a.m., went to a second alarm approximately 12 minutes later. It took nearly three-quarters of an hour before — 5:53 a.m. — firefighters were able to bring the blaze under control, according to fire officials. Five people were sent to area hospitals with minor injuries.
It caused severe damage to the house, especially in the rear where large portions of the cream colored structure were totally destroyed, said Acting Deputy Fire Chief Mark Fernen.
It was not immediately clear how many people or families lived in the house.
DiCrescento had just finished a double shift and was driving toward the Goethals Bridge on the Staten Island Expressway to his Arden Heights home, when he saw the flames from the roadway as he passed by the Slosson Avenue exit and stopped his car.
“I have three kids of my own, that’s why I backed up on the highway,” said the 15-year police department veteran. “I thought, ‘what if there are children in there?’ I guess it was just instinct.”
Tony Pisano, who lives across the street from the house, said he was afraid the fire was going to spread, because there huge flames shooting out of the windows and from the back of the house.
A cause for the fire was not immediately known.
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