NEW YORK -- A firefighter saved an infant from the flames of a firebombed Bronx house yesterday after the panicked father came close to dropping the baby from an upper floor.
Michael Tompkins, 31, arrived with Ladder Co. 39 at 4057 Lowerre Place in Williamsbridge, where thugs had tossed Molotov cocktails, police said.
Tompkins arrived to find the man dangling his 9-month-old out of a third-story window, desperate to get the child to safety.
Tompkins said that all he heard was " 'I'm going to drop the baby, I'm going to drop the baby,' but I just kept telling him not to jump and to hang on."
"Just give me a couple seconds and I'll be there," he recalled shouting.
"Another 20 seconds, he would have jumped."
Tompkins said he climbed up a wobbly ladder and, though still three to five feet short, was able to grasp the child by the back of the neck.
The family was treated at Jacobi Hospital.
Republished with permission of The New York Post.
