A cooking accident yesterday turned a Staten Island man into a human torch who staggered in flames onto his front lawn, where horrified neighbors tried to extinguish him with blankets, sources said.
Louis Gloria, 60, was cooking in the kitchen of his Eltingville home at about 4:30 p.m. when a grease fire erupted, engulfing his entire body, fire officials and neighbors said.
The desperate man first tried to douse the flames with water, but that only made the fire worse. In agony, he stumbled out of his Winchester Avenue home.
“He was burning alive,” said neighbor Edward Leavy Jr., 43. “It was a pretty horrific sight.”
Edward’s brother Matthew Leavy, 46, called 911 and then quickly ran over to aid the burning man, but the flames wouldn’t go down.
“The problem was you would try to smother the flames but it would just reignite, Leavy said. “His screams were just nightmarish.”
Neighbors and relatives did their best to keep the flames under control until firefighters showed up on scene. Gloria was transported to Staten Island University Hospital in stable condition.