12 people were injured when fire tore through a Bronx home early this morning, but it could have been a lot worse if not for the efforts of a one-armed, one-legged man who safely dropped a newborn baby girl and his own toddler from the second-floor balcony. Witnesses say Fidel Morales, 54, was able to drop his 17-month-old son over the balcony into the arms of a neighbor, who also caught a newborn baby girl. Morales then jumped from the balcony himself.
"The neighbors caught the baby and passed it to me," Franciane Valmont, 50, tells DNAinfo. "Soon after, they dropped a second baby. They were both in their pajamas. But they weren’t crying. The [man and woman] were screaming though." Another witness tells the website, "The man was hanging onto the balcony with one hand. He came down on top of me, and we both fell to the floor. He was screaming, 'Help, help, help' the whole time.'"
Valmont, who reportedly works for the Department of Correction and uses prosthetic limbs, was taken to Jacobi Hospital in critical condition. Two other people were critically injured, three were listed in serious but stable condition, and seven others sustained minor injuries.
Investigators say candles caused the fire, which broke out shortly after 4 a.m. in the Soundview section of the Bronx, and that there was no smoke alarm in the home. The fire fire comes just days after three young children were killed in another Bronx fire.
