Firefighters Rescue Unconscious Woman From
Burning, Smoke-Filled Manhattan Apartment
NY Daily News 6/17/09
Firefighters kicked in the door
of a smoke-filled upper Manhattan apartment early Wednesday and
pulled an unconscious woman to safety, officials said.
A mattress fire sparked just before 3:30 a.m., sending choking
smoke through the apartment and preventing the woman from
escaping on her own, firefighters said.
Overcome by fumes, the woman passed out and was on the verge of
going into cardiac arrest when Firefighter Mike Wunder of Ladder
Co. 36 reached her.
"She was wedged between the bed and the wall," said Wunder, an
18-year veteran of the FDNY.
Wunder, 43, and another firefighter knocked the bed aside to
reach the woman and ran her down four flights of stairs to an
ambulance on Isham St.
"She was barely breathing on her own," said Firefighter Steve
Brunner, who carried the woman into the ambulance, "But once we
put the mask on, she came around."
The cause of the fire, which started in a spare bedroom, was
still under investigation but did not appear suspicious, FDNY
officials said. "This is my second one," said Wunder, who said
he saved a woman from a fire on Pinehurst Ave. five years ago.
"It feels great - like we did our job."
The victim - who neighbors knew as Cynthia, a flight attendant
from Israel - was at Harlem Hospital in serious but stable
condition.
"She's really nice," neighbor Christine Gross said. "Tall,
outgoing, friendly. She loves cats, loves to travel."
Though one of the woman's cats was pulled from the blaze, a
second died in the fire and three others are missing, neighbors
said.
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