Staten Island, N.Y. — A woman was rescued from a three-alarm house fire in West Brighton Thursday, thanks to the quick actions of two next-door neighbors who claim they used a discarded mattress to help her safely escape from a second-story window.
Marilyn Benitez, 51, told the Advance/SILive.com, she saw thick, heavy smoke pouring from the home at 108 Taylor St. and heard someone screaming for help. Through the smoke, she was just barely able to see the woman’s hand through the window, she said.
Quickly retrieving an old mattress that had been left sitting on the side of the house for sanitation pickup, her daughter, Denise Hernandez, 36, instructed the woman to break the window and jump, she said.
Landing on the mattress, the woman immediately lost consciousness moments before the F