US News

SAMARITANS CATCH GAL LEAPING FROM QNS. FIRE

A Queens woman who jumped from her third-floor apartment yesterday as flames raged all around her survived unhurt – thanks to the quick thinking of nearly a dozen good Samaritans, cops and witnesses said.

Irene Karras awoke at about 1 p.m. to find flames consuming her home on 41st Street in Astoria. With no safe means of escape, she sat on her bedroom window’s ledge and yelled to the gathering crowd below that she had no choice but to jump.

Maria Ines, a neighbor, quickly enlisted help in hauling a blanket and mattress that she had yet to set up in her own apartment over to the burning building.

Ten men grabbed the blanket, held it tight over the mattress, yelled for the 20-something Karras to jump, then broke her fall.

“She was going to jump either way,” said Jason Gerrish, who had been driving past and stopped to help. “If we didn’t have the mattress, she was going to jump to the pavement.”