September 30, 2004 -- Firefighters were battling a blaze in a Brooklyn building when one radioed a desperate mayday - he was trapped in the basement.
With barely a thought to his own safety, firefighter James Mills crawled into a deathtrap to help his "brother."
"There was zero visibility," in the basement, recalled Mills, 39, who had responded with Ladder Co. 176 to the commercial building in Bushwick on March 4, 2003, and heard the call for help from a colleague from another unit.
"I was going by touch," said Mills, who found himself in an illegally subdivided basement with a blocked-off stairway, mounds of garbage and cement columns.
He crawled a tortured 80 feet in toxic black smoke as sprinklers exploded, drenching him in water.
Hearing a muffled firefighter's air-tank alarm through the smoke, Mills found an unconscious Robert Petrarca, from Ladder 120, drowning in a puddle of water.
Mills pulled his brother fireman out of the water and tried to get him out.
"Petrarca was too big," he recalled. "I couldn't move him."
At that point, Mills' own tank ran out of air, forcing him to take his mask off.
Mills radioed in his position, and members of Rescue 4 came through a hole in the cellar wall, helping Mills pull the unconscious firefighter out of the building. Moments later, the basement ceiling collapsed.
"James Mills is a heads-up firefighter," said Capt. Raymond Trinkle, the commanding officer of Ladder 176, in nominating Mills for The Post's Bravest Liberty Medal.
"He is one of the leaders of our firehouse."
Mills is no stranger to heroic acts.
A former city cop, he has been cited for heroism several times in his 11-year FDNY career.
He also comes from a Fire Department family. His father was a captain, his uncle was a deputy chief, and his brother is a firefighter.