What to Know
- A fast-moving fire broke out inside a Brooklyn apartment building just after midnight Friday morning
- One woman became trapped inside the burning Cypress Hills home, but the quick actions from her next-door neighbor may have saved her life
- There was no immediate word on what may have sparked the blaze, but fire officials believe it started on the second floor
A man is being hailed a hero after he risked his own life to save his next-door neighbor’s from a raging fire in Brooklyn.
Pablo Espinoza said after he smelled the thick smoke that was nearly overtaking the entire Cypress Hills street he ran outside to hear the woman's screams for help inside the apartment building next door to his Ashford Street home.
“I tried three times to go up there, but I said to myself ‘If I go in there I’m going to die, I’m going to stay here,’” he exclusively told News 4. “Then I started knocking on the floor and started screaming follow the noise.”
Espinoza waited until she slowly crawled her way to him.
“Then she barely made it to me and that’s when I grabbed her and I ran out with her and I brought her outside,” Espinoza said at the scene. "She was about to die."
The woman was rushed to an area hospital, where she is suffering from life-threatening injuries.
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“That’s an angel from the sky,” witness Maritza Jimenez said. “Everybody else left her. God bless him.”
No other injuries were reported in the fast-moving fire that broke out just after midnight Friday morning. There was no immediate word on what may have sparked the blaze, but fire officials believe it started on the second floor.
The Red Cross assisted eight people living inside the building.
