Two children were saved from a Bronx fire yesterday afternoon by jumping from their fourth-floor window onto a quilt held out by good Samaritans on the street. Fire marshals have determined that one of the kids was playing with a toy near their stove when it caught fire, and that the three children were home alone. Their father says he had left them to give a DNA sample for a sexual assault investigation.
Jacob Ellis, 6, and brother Joshua, 7, bravely jumped to the street, but one reportedly hit a phone wire on the way down and then bounced to the concrete after hitting the quilt. "They were screaming as if they were in pain," said one teen who helped hold the quilt. The boys' 4-year-old brother was trapped on the other side of the fire and was later rescued by a firefighter who suffered severe burns to his back after his gear caught fire. The three brothers are listed in critical condition at Jacobi Medical Center.