A suffocating fire had people in Rockland County running for safety on Saturday as smoke filled their multi-story apartment building.
One passerby saw the commotion and jumped into action, saving an 8-month-old girl from the top floor.
Emergency officials said the fire started in the afternoon at a building on West Eckerson Road in Spring Valley. A number of tenants struggled to escape as the hallways filled with smoke.
One man from a neighboring complex said he rushed in -- climbing a tree and hopping a fence to get to the building's fire escape and reach the top floor to save the baby girl.
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"I saw a lot of people over there, they were screaming. I saw one baby, I think she was 1 years old," Jean Donald Mathieu said. "I tried to save the baby."
He said the 8-month-old girl was going to be fine. But officials said two people had to be treated for smoke inhalation.
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Spring Valley Fire Chief Ken Conjura said more than 75 firefighters from five different departments got the fire knocked down in about 20 minutes.
The fire started in the kitchen of one of the top floor apartments, the same unit where the baby was rescued from, Conjura explained. The cause is still under investigation.
