A disabled Long Island woman who couldn't move from her bed when a fire broke out in her home was saved by a neighbor who happened to be stepping out for dinner.
Andy Carbone was leaving his Farmingville home when his wife spotted a fire in a nearby house. The former volunteer firefighter kicked in the burning front door and found 72-year-old Carolyn Prince bedridden in the back of the smoky house.
"I said, 'Your house is on fire,' and she said, 'OK, what are we going to do?'" said Carbone. "I said, 'You're coming with me one way or another.'"
Carbone, another neighbor and first responders carried Prince to safety, but not before the father of four used an old fire extinguisher that had been kicking around in his closet for years to douse the flames.
A volunteer firefighter in Massapequa for a decade before moving to Farmingville, Carbone said his old training helped him during the rescue.
Prince was treated for smoke inhalation but escaped serious injury. The cause of the fire is believed to be electrical in nature.
Ironically, Carbone wasn't even supposed to be at home but when his jury duty finished earlier than expected, his wife told him to come home rather than meet her out for dinner.
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"Thank God," said Prince's daughter Wendy Pabon. "Everything happens for a reason."
"It just brought tears to my eyes. It's so amazing that people could be like that," she said.
"He is a true hero," said Pabon.
Carbone, however, would prefer simply to be called a good neighbor.
"Just a neighbor doing the right thing when it meant the most," he said.
