By Deborah Young
The Staten Island Advance
NEW YORK — Firefighters rescued a disabled man from the balcony of his Prince’s Bay home in a two-alarm fire — whisking him to safety just moments before the house collapsed from the heat.
Joseph Russo, 47, was stranded on the tiny overhang after a fast-moving fire broke out in his home at 38 Memo St. before 10 p.m. on Sunday.
Russo, who has a prosthetic leg and has difficulty moving, was hoisted into a rescue ladder.
He was taken a block away Staten Island University Hospital, Princes Bay, for initial treatment and thereafter was in stable condition at the Ocean Breeze site, with burns on his back and leg, his family said.
Russo’s wife, Vicky Russo, their 14-year-old daughter, Diane, 14, and family friend, Antonique Rivela, 14, escaped out the front door.
“I tried to go back and get him, but the windows blew out and there was too much smoke; I was screaming,” said Mrs. Russo yesterday as she stood outside the charred structure.
The smell of smoke hung in the air.
Two framed photos of her husband’s grandparents lay in the ash on the sidewalk.
Everything else was destroyed, she said.
“There are no words to describe this,” said Mrs. Russo.
The fire is still under investigation, according to the New York City Fire Department. Several firefighters were treated for minor injuries.
Mrs. Russo said the blaze apparently started on the deck on the side yard of the house, which is at the corner of Trenton Court, across the street from a wooded area.
She gestured at the plastic fence that had been curled by the heat.
“He was trapped upstairs and screaming,” said neighbor Al Bertone, who came running down the street, barefoot, with a baseball bat when he heard the two teenage girls shrieking for help.
“I didn’t know what was happening, I just heard these screams,” he said.
Lifting up his shirt to show burn marks on his chest, he said he tried to get a ladder up to Russo, but the heat coming from the house was too intense.
He grabbed a hose in the backyard, he said, and sprayed the blaze until firefighters arrived.
“It was moving so fast, the whole house just went up,” said Bertone, who also helped lift the family’s three dogs over the fence to safety.
The family is staying with friends and family for now, said Mrs. Russo, who lost even the keys to the cars in the driveway in the fire.
She said her daughter, who will be a freshman at Notre Dame Academy starting next week, does not have uniforms or school supplies.
“I’m just thankful we’re OK,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and looking up at the house where the family of three has lived for the past eight years.
The home is owned by her husband’s aunt, who is on vacation now. It has been up for sale for several months, she said.
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