Elderly Neighbor Rescued by Alert Woman

An 80-year-old woman was rescued Thursday by a former neighbor whose concerns were aroused when she spotted newspapers piling up outside the Woodside, Queens woman's front door. Kim Russo used to live next door to Rose Schwing and was stopping by her old neighborhood to visit her mother. When the 47-year-old Russo saw the papers and mail accumulating in front of Schwing's house, she peaked inside one of Schwing's windows and heard her cries for help.

Schwing had been sitting in her living room alone when a leg on her chair broke and sent her sprawling to the floor, where she could not get herself up. The poor woman had been lying on the floor for five days before she was discovered by Russo, who broke down the front door of her former neighbor's home and called 911 for help. Schwing is recovering at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens.

Last year, police discovered a woman's fully dressed skeletal remains in her apartment two years after she passed away. By the time she was discovered, her uncollected mail was stacked four feet high.