It was even better than a visit from ol’ St. Nick.
An elderly Staten Island couple and their beloved pet cat were rescued from the balcony of their burning apartment by an off-duty firefighter driving home on Christmas night.
Steven Carl, a seven-year FDNY veteran, was heading back to his South Beach residence on Sunday after celebrating the holiday at his parents’ home when he spotted flames at 11:45 p.m. above the roofline not far from his block.
With his wife and their two kids in the car, Carl followed the trail of black smoke to Atlantic Avenue and discovered a two-family home engulfed in flames.
“My instincts just kick in and I did what I was trained to do,” said Carl, 37.
Carl said he sprinted to the backyard, grabbed a ladder he found lying on the ground and hoisted it up to the small second-floor balcony, where the stranded couple was making a desperate bid to escape.
Carl soon found himself in trouble- the ladder fell out from under him and he was momentarily left clinging to the balcony ledge until a neighbor ran over and raised the ladder back up.
That’s when Carl was able to lead Robert Strafer, 78, wife Mary Strafer 61, and their elderly cat to safety.
“Be careful, it’s 20 years old,” Carl recalled the man saying as he clinged to the kitty.
The couple was taken to the burn unit at Staten Island University Hospital and treated for smoke inhalation and some burns.
The resident of the first floor apartment where the blaze began, 60-year-old Catherine Pellegrino, managed to escape on her own. Responding firefighters were able to save one of her dogs; the other perished in the fire, officials said.
The blaze was sparked by a faulty string of electrical lights wrapped around a Christmas tree, FDNY officials said.