Firefighters save 5 in Brooklyn arson

[BFD1054 1,552]

BY AUSTIN FENNER and TONY SCLAFANI

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Firefighters braved intense heat and blinding smoke to pluck five unconscious family members - including four children - from a raging arson fire in a Brooklyn apartment building early yesterday.

"Please, somebody get my kids upstairs!" screamed Cendri Hervieaux, who lives in the first-floor apartment.

Her children, ages 2 and 9, were visiting their aunt and two cousins on the top floor of the four-story Crown Heights building when the fire erupted about 5:30 a.m.

The kids, ranging in age to 16, were in stable condition. But Hervieaux's sister Lisa Hervieaux-Lovett, mother of one of the children, was clinging to life last night at Jacobi Medical Center.

"There was nothing I could do. You just have to let them do their job," said Cendri Hervieaux, 38, who was awakened by loud screams and shattering glass above her first-floor home.

With flames shooting from the rooftop, firefighters from Squad 1 and Ladder 113 crawled through thick, black smoke to pull out the family trapped inside a cramped bedroom.

Firefighters fought through flames as veteran Squad 1 members Eddie Cowan and Mike Stackpole climbed a fire escape and broke through a window to be the first inside the smoke-filled, fourth-floor apartment.

With clocks and picture frames melting around them, the two could barely see as they crawled into the bedroom, finding the family passed out on the floor.

"They were trying to get out, and they couldn't," said Stackpole, 38, whose firefighter brother, Tim, was killed on 9/11. "You're just thinking about getting them out as fast as you can."

As burning embers rained down, Cowan, 31, and another firefighter carefully carried Hervieaux-Lovett, 39, down the charred main staircase.

Her son, Vaughn, 11, and nephews Joseph Williams, 16, and Khalif Tulloch, 9, soon followed, while her 2-year-old niece, Zariah Tulloch, was rescued through a window.

Firefighters and paramedics rushed to perform CPR on all five outside the brick building at 852 Classon Ave. The 2-year-old was at New York Methodist Hospital last night, sedated and intubated as a precautionary measure, relatives said.

Hervieaux-Lovett, a subway token clerk who suffers from asthma, inhaled lots of smoke and was in critical condition. Her husband, Vincent, a subway conductor, was keeping a vigil at her bedside last night, relatives said.

"If it wasn't for the firefighters, anything could have happened," said Cendri Hervieaux, who also works a subway conductor. "Thank God they came when they did."

The blaze broke out when someone ignited some clothes and garbage in a stairwell near the second floor, officials said. Flames shot to the roof and began consuming the family's apartment when someone opened the door.

The fire was under control at 6:06 a.m. but had caused enough damage to leave the building's eight families homeless. The American Red Cross temporarily put them up in hotels.

Later, firefighters were modest about their rescue.

"We're just regular guys," Stackpole said, "but when we work together we do things we cannot do alone."

The rescue came hours before his brother's widow, Tara Stackpole, addressed the Republican National Convention about the heroism of New York's Bravest.

With Greg Gittrich

*I found this article in the Daily News & figured i would post it. Its just nice to finally see something nice written about FDNY's Bravest after all the negative press in the last few weeks.