A communications error that sent firefighters to the wrong part of town, could have ended in tragedy if not for the heroic efforts of a Bronx man and his neighbors.
Firefighters sent to battle the blaze that broke out shortly after 4 am Monday on Taylor Avenue were erroneously sent to Teller Avenue — some four miles away and in a completely different section of the borough, according to an incident report.
The gaffe wasted nearly two minutes, and forced residents to perform their own heroics, including one sure-handed rescue by a neighbor who caught an infant and a 3-year-old boy who were desperately dropped from a second-floor terrace.
“I saw the family on the top crying,” said Wilgem “Eddie” Herasme, who also broke the fall of the children’s grandmother and a one-armed, one-legged vet who was hanging from a railing by one hand before letting go.
“I started saying, ‘Gimme, gimme, gimme! Let him go!” said Herasme, who owns a grocery store in the Bronx.
The mother tossed the 27-day-old infant down while the grandmother dropped the other boy.
Herasme then spotted the unidentified vet “screaming all the time, ‘Help, help, help!’ “he said.
“He was hanging on with one hand. He come down on top of me and we both fell,” he said. “Then I caught the grandmother.”
A witness described a harrowing scene.
“We started screaming, ‘Let go of the babies! Let go of the babies!’ The guy who caught the babies passed them on [to me],” said Franciane Valmont, 50, who lives next door.
Sources said the dramatic rescues might not have been necessary if the address had been verified sooner.
“The 911 operators got it wrong,” said Uniformed Firefighters Association president Steve Cassidy. “It took a minute and a half to get the address corrected. A minute and a half is an unacceptable lapse for the time it takes to get units rolling to a fire. People’s lives hang in the balance when mistakes are made.”
NYPD Deputy Chief Kim Royster said the delay was caused by the caller being unable to give cross streets and as soon as they were able to coax them out of the coughing, panicked victim, they sent other units to the proper address.
“She was coughing and unable to give the cross streets,” she said. “The call taker did not make an error. The call taker repeated the address back and she said, ‘Yes.’ As soon as she gave the cross streets, we sent additional units there.”
Officials said a candle sparked the blaze. Twelve people were injured.